A Turn in Time
by Redshadow43
Summary: Due to an accident the two cannot quite understand, Tom Riddle Jr is transported 25 years into the future, while Hermione Granger is catapulted 25 years into the past. They find themselves thrust into the middle of the Vietnam war with no clue why.
1. Chapter 1

A Turn in Time

J.K. Rowling is responsible for the Harry Potter universe and its excellent characters, all the rest is mine. Please do not reproduce this work of fiction anywhere without my permission.

Robin Joy Wirth

CHAPTER ONE

Tom Riddle went to work at Borgin and Burke's store for about the fiftieth time since being hired shortly after his graduation. He disliked interrupting his studies for something as menial as labor, but with only a few coins to rub together and the palatial estate that had once belonged to his father's family to maintain, and what with the Muggle 's World War II going on, he had little choice in the matter.

He had taken to reading the Muggle papers of late, just to see how they progressed. Additionally, he had been reading some of their fiction in his spare time, of which he had little, and even listened to their music occasionally. He especially enjoyed jazz and big band music, and even a few songs from the Americas.

As he entered the door of Borgin and Burke's and took off his cloak Borgin was there to greet him.

"You've been playing around with the Vanishing cabinet again, I see," he admonished him. "It's not safe to use those these days, my boy. I heard tell one of them was recently moved to some spot over in Japan. I guess the fellow wanted to get a look at the war over there first hand—and maybe stir up some magical trouble while he was there. Randomly going to just any destination as you've been doing is liable to land you in some pretty hot water."

"What trouble can a bunch of stupid Muggles be?" Tom wanted to know as he stalked over to the item in question. "I tell you, this is one of the most fascinating pieces of history I've ever seen."

"Why do you find those damned Muggles so fascinating, Tom?" he asked irritably.

"You forget, I was raised in a Muggle orphanage," he reminded the man. "Do you think I would completely forget all of my interests just because I learned about my other heritage?"

"I suppose not," he conceded. "It's just too bad your mother decided to consort with that Muggle in the first place, if you ask me. Waste of perfectly good pure Slytherin blood. Not that you turned out badly, mind. You're one of the lucky ones. Mark my words, if I had my way, interbreeding with the non-magical sort would be more strictly forbidden. We don't need a gaggle of Mudbloods diluting an otherwise superior race."

"You sound just like a Nazi, you know," Tom mentioned, hiding his smile after goading the man.

"Hitler had the right of it, indeed," Borgin said. "Purification of a race is ultimately the most noble goal there can be. Too bad he was a Muggle, or I would have shaken his hand."

"Is it truly as important as all that?" Tom wanted to know. "I know that Salazar Slytherin was a great wizard, and his blood runs through my veins, but my Muggle blood will hardly keep me from doing great and powerful things. I've done a few of those things already, truth be told."

"Yes, I know all about your little group, Voldemort," the man scoffed. "But a fad usually dies out, and you're going to need a great many more followers than those few if you want to make a difference in this world."

"I have more followers than you think," Tom said with a hint of pride in his voice. "You'll see—the line of Slytherin will find no fault with me."

"I hope you are right, my boy," he answered. "But for now, it appears we have a customer. And remember, kindness is often helpful if you hope to make a sale."

#

"Did you hear what the bloody Americans pulled off the other day?" Tom overheard the Minister of Magic comment to one of his minions as they headed for one of the fireplaces that led out of the Ministry hall the following day. He often lurked in the hall just to catch the conversations there, and this one held the promise of being of interest.

"No, what did the bloody Colonists do this time?" the other man asked.

"They've detonated a bomb out in the desert that was so powerful its force shook the magical energy field that surrounds the Wizarding World."

"You don't say," he gasped. "Did any of the Muggles get a glimpse of our true goings on?"

"Only a few," he said. "But of course, they were dealt with accordingly. But if the Muggles have created a weapon that powerful, I wonder what it will mean to the future of our world."

The two men vanished into the chimney, leaving Tom to speculate on their words. Perhaps, he thought, the Wizarding World might benefit from such a device, rather than find it to be a threat. If he had been able to speak to the Minister himself, he would have suggested as much. With a grim smile, he headed back into the small room where they kept their supposedly non-existent Vanishing cabinet and used it to go back to work, as his lunch break was undoubtedly over by then.

"Ah, there you are, Tom," said Borgin as the young man stepped out of the cabinet on the other side. "I've had it on good authority that the Muggle war you've been following is about to be over. Then maybe you can get back to more important matters."

"What do you mean, sir?" Tom asked curiously.

"A military friend of mine has just popped by with news of a planned attack on Japan if they refuse to agree to the Americans' terms, he explained. "It's scheduled to occur sometime tomorrow."

"Will they be using the new explosive device?" he wanted to know.

"How do you know about that?" he asked in surprise. "Well, never mind. Yes, I heard from my friend that they'll be flying it overhead and detonating the thing while it's still in the air. Apparently it will cover much more ground that way."

"That is completely brutal," said Tom with a wicked glee. But then he had a thought as he remembered what the last bomb had done to the magical realm. "Sir, do you think it's safe of the Muggles to detonate an untried bomb up in the atmosphere like that? Only think what repercussions it might have on—well, on our world as well as their own."

"There's no stopping them now, I'm afraid," he said. "For good or ill, by this time tomorrow, we will all know just how much power a stupid Muggle can wield when he puts his mind to it."

#

The following day, as Tom was working alone in the store, he heard an odd noise. It was like a pulse of lightning surging again and again, and each time it surged the noise grew louder. Curiosity got the better of him, and he looked around, trying to locate the source.

"What the devil?" he said as he spotted the Vanishing cabinet. It was glowing a strange shade of green, and as he approached it to have a closer look, a sudden surge of energy leapt out and sucked him inside. Everything went topsy-turvy for a few moments, and then he slipped into unconsciousness.

When he awakened in a dark and misty cave he had no idea how much time had passed. His disorientation was not eased by lighting his wand to have a look around. It was a simple cave, and no Vanishing cabinet was anywhere in sight. He had no idea how he had come to be there, but he knew that he needed to rest his swimming head. He laid out his cloak on the floor of the cave and settled down for a rest.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Hermione Granger was just celebrating her sixteenth birthday, and her friends Ron and Harry had brought in a cake with one big candle on the top. They weren't really supposed to have food in the common room as a general rule, but their Headmistress, Professor McGonagall, had allowed it this time because these three students were a special case. They had saved Hogwarts more than once from the evil machinations of Lord Voldemort, after all, and fame did have its benefits.

Now that they were entering their fifth year at Hogwarts with the clear knowledge that Lord Voldemort was alive and well once more, Hermione could not help but worry about what would happen in the days that followed. Harry Potter, the boy who had lived, was clearly in grave danger, and without proper training, so were the rest of the students as well. Hermione had been wracking her brain for a solution to the problem for weeks now.

"Hermione, what's the matter with your time turner?" asked Ron as he looked askance at the small object that hung around her neck as usual. She often wore the item, just in case she might have need of it, but just now she wasn't so sure she wanted to be anywhere near it as it made a loud whining sound.

The room started to whirl around, and she felt her body disapparate into nothingness. When she was in one piece again she found herself lying flat on her back inside a dark and gloomy cave. She glanced up when she saw wand light headed her way.

"Hello?" she called out to whoever it was. "Have you any idea where we are? I seem to have suffered some sort of magical accident."

A tall, handsome young man strode into view. He had dark, curly hair and striking blue eyes that almost knocked Hermione right onto her backside again.

"You're lost, too?" he asked in a smooth, dynamic voice as he looked her over, but tried to pretend he didn't. "Well, I must say, if I have to be stranded in a cave with no idea where I am, I couldn't pick a prettier girl to share the experience with."

"It's not exactly the way I hoped to spend my birthday," Hermione told him, though she could not help but blush over the compliment.

"I shall endeavor to make your day as special as I can, then," he offered with a smile that made her knees go weak. She was certain the man knew his effect on her when she sensed the satisfaction in his eyes as he took in her response.

"You're a real charmer, aren't you?" she asked with a slightly breathless tone.

"I do my best to please," he said. He put a hand at her elbow to turn her in the direction he wanted to travel, and she fell into step beside him.

"So, I hope you've got some way to figure out how to get out of here?" she asked.

"I've been following a draft," he explained. "Where there's airflow, there has to be some sort of opening to let that air in."

"True, but how do you know the opening will be big enough to get out of?" she pointed out.

"Clever girl," he said appreciatively. "That's what we've got our wands for. You do have a wand, don't you?"

"Yes, of course," she answered as she pulled it out to show it to him. "I've got this time turner, too, but it seems to be broken. I think it's the reason I am here."

"Time turner, you say?" he asked as he lifted the trinket off her chest so the chain pulled slightly at the back of her neck. "Did it malfunction, then?"

"Yes," she said. "It suddenly transported me here."

"I came here because of a malfunctioning magical object as well," he said speculatively. "Perhaps once we get out of here, we'll have a clearer understanding."

"Yes, you're probably right," she agreed.

The two moved on in companionable silence for what seemed like hours before they rounded a corner and saw the exit they sought before them. They also saw several armed men huddled between them and their destination.

"Those weapons seem quite advanced, even for Muggles," said Tom as he looked their guns over. "And I don't recognize the uniforms, either."

"No?" Hermione asked, casting him an incredulous look. "Those are American soldiers—but if I'm right, then we didn't just get thrown into another place. I think we've been thrown into another time as well."

"Why do you think so?" Tom wanted to know.

"These men," she explained. "I've seen their uniform before, in a documentary on the Vietnamese war."

Tom cast her a strange look. He had no idea what war she was talking about. Surely she was not referring to the war in Japan that was just about to end. But then, what did she mean? And why did she speak as if she'd been thrown into the past, rather than the future?

"I'm quite confused," he told her in a whisper as the two backed away from the men and hid somewhere in the shadows. "What year did you think this was?"

"1995, of course," she said with a laugh, certain he was teasing her.

"And this war you're talking about?" he asked, feeling the bile rise in his throat. "When did you say that was?"

"Sometime in the late '60's and early '70's," she told him. "That would mean I've come back twenty-five years, give or take."

"I suspect twenty-five years is very precise," he told her after a moment of speculation. "That is how far forward I would have come, as well, if your calculations are correct."

"Are you telling me you just came from 1945?" she asked with a gasp. "But how? Why? What does it all mean?"

"I only wish I had the answers," Tom told her with a frown. "All I know is, the American's were about to detonate a bomb over Japan today—I mean, the day it was before I came here. I wonder if the bomb may have had this effect."

"But why would that affect me?" Hermione asked. "There was no detonation where I came from. The only trouble going on in my time is with a wizard who wants to take over the world, and to the best of my knowledge even he wasn't up to anything today—I mean, well, you know what I mean."

"And what was the name of this ambitious wizard, might I ask?"  
>"No one says his name," she explained. "He put a spell on it. If anyone says his name, it activates the spell and he knows right where they are, and just what they are saying about him."<p>

"Interesting," Tom said. "I wouldn't mind learning a spell like that."

Hermione laughed. "It can't be very much fun listening to the conversations of thousands of witches and wizards, and trying to pinpoint which ones need to be taken notice of."

"I never thought of that," he agreed. "It could drive a person mad, trying to sort all that out."

"Personally, if I wanted to take over the world, I wouldn't do it by force," she told him. "It seems to me the best way to take over would be to teach the children what you wanted them to learn, because that way when they were grown they would be in agreement with you, and it's far better to have everyone in agreement than it is to try to keep them from rising up against you at any minute."

"I suppose so," he agreed. "That's sort of what my employer was just saying about Adolph Hitler. He wanted a pure, Arian race, much like the pure-blooded wizards have wanted to eradicate the mixture of Muggle blood with ours."

"The man won't get any sympathy from me," Hermione said with a scowl. "I haven't got any pure blood in me at all."

"You're a Muggle?" Tom asked with surprise. "But how can that be? I sense a great deal of power within you."

"I don't know why I'm magical," she admitted. "But I'm just starting my fifth year at Hogwarts, and so far I've been at the top of my class. Well, unless you want to count divination."

"Too bad," Tom said as he pulled a face. "We could use a good fortune teller right about now."

"We may as well rest here until our friends decide to move on," Hermione suggested. "It does no good to hope they'll be leaving before it gets dark out. Moving by night was one of their methods."


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Hermione woke a few hours later to see that her companion was propped up on one elbow watching her sleep. She blushed profusely when she realized he had no intention of looking away simply because she had opened her eyes.

"You know, I was just thinking about a better way to kill some time than sleeping," he mentioned with a smile that turned her insides to jelly.

"Like what?" she asked, though she knew perfectly well what he had in mind.

"You never told me your name, you know," he mentioned as he ran one finger slowly down the side of her cheek, leaving behind flesh of molten lava in its wake.

"It's Hermione," she told him. "Hermione Granger."

"Mmm, that name suits you, Hermione," he said softly. "You can call me Tom."

She giggled softly, and he raised an inquisitive brow.

"I can call you that, but is it really your name?" she asked with a grin.

"Part of it," he hedged. "But I never really liked my name. Seems to me, if I'm stuck in the future, I should be allowed to choose my own name while I'm here. How about Gaunt? I'll be Thomas Gaunt. Does this please you?"

"It's more important that it pleases you," she answered.

"But I want to please you," he said with a gleam in his eye. The finger slid down her neck and arm as he spoke. "Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are, Hermione Granger?"

She blushed profusely as his touch coursed all through her body and settled somewhere in the pit of her stomach. "You're not so bad yourself," she told him as her hand came up to rest on his shoulder as she looked into his eyes.

Tom leaned forward, intent on kissing her, when suddenly they were interrupted.

"What are you two doing in here?" one of the soldiers demanded. "Get up, let's have a look at you."

"You have some bloody poor timing, you have," Tom complained as he got to his feet and dusted himself off. He offered Hermione a hand up, and she took it gratefully.

"You're a Brit," said the man with some surprise.

"Yes," he agreed, and put Hermione behind him when he noticed the man was looking her over.

"We were on holiday, heading for Egypt, but our plane went down before we could get there," Hermione improvised.

"Yes, we wandered in here for lack of a better shelter," Tom agreed, though inwardly he wondered if travelling by plane had become so commonplace that this soldier would accept her words at face value."

"Oh, I hadn't heard of any crashes," the soldier said. "Then again, news is hard to come by out here in the jungle. HQ just dusted this whole place with Agent Orange. You're damn lucky you weren't out there when they did it."

"No doubt," Hermione agreed as she wrapped her arms around Tom's waist and looked shyly around his back at the man she was speaking to.

"You two look like newlyweds," he said with a laugh. "Bet you never planned on spending your honeymoon in a war zone."

"It wasn't really on tonight's agenda," Tom agreed with a grin that suggested he'd had completely other ideas in mind.

The soldier laughed riotously and said, "You mean to tell me you've been waiting for the goodies, son? That's completely uncommon in today's day and age."

"Hey now, don't be insulting the lady," Tom insisted, his temper rising. "My Hermione is a good girl. I didn't mind."

"Oh, I'm not casting any aspersions on your lady," the man reassured him. "But I do think you two had better come with us. We'll find a way to get you out of here and back to London before you know it. Just keep your little beauty close. Some of these men haven't even seen a girl in a long time."

"I can assure you, sir, I'll be keeping this one very close," Tom told him as his own arm curled protectively around her. Hermione blushed at his words, and wondered just how close he had in mind.

#

"I've never seen such a strange looking contraption," Tom whispered in Hermione's ear as a chopper set down not two hundred yards away, out in the clearing. He hated to admit to an attack of nerves as he looked at the thing.

Hermione could see by the look in his eyes that he was uncomfortable. "It's not like there are any brooms about," she whispered back. "We're going to have to utilize Muggle means of travel for now."

"It's not as though I'm unfamiliar with the concept of aircraft, Hermione," he said. "I'm just not familiar with this one."

"It flies like a hummingbird," she offered as an explanation, and he nodded in understanding.

"Are those still the birds that fly around the heads of lovers to bless their union?" he inquired innocently.

"Where did you hear that?" she wanted to know.

"A little bird told me," he said with a grin.

"Oh!" Hermione gasped, and punched him in the arm. Tom laughed and caught her hand in his, then brought it to his lips with a glance like liquid heat. Hermione gasped again, but this time from the sheer intensity of this interaction. His lips trailed up her arm until they reached the nape of her neck, and then he turned her fact to his. Their eyes met in hot acceptance of what was about to happen between them.

"They're ready to take off now," said one of the soldiers. "You'll need to hurry up. We don't want Charlie to get any ideas."

"Who is Charlie?" Tom asked.

"The bad guy," Hermione explained.

"Oh," he said. "We wouldn't want anything to do with him."

Tom and Hermione ran toward the chopper hand in hand, and then he helped her get inside before he climbed in behind her. He took her hand back in his again as he took a seat beside her, and she cast him an amused glance.

"We're newlyweds, remember?" he whispered against the shell of her ear.

"So does that mean I get to start nagging you and denying you sex?" she asked curiously.

"Not where I come from," he laughed. "Things must have changed a lot in the last twenty-five years."

"You have no idea," she told him.

"Perhaps you could enlighten me a bit, then," he suggested. "I'm going to need to know what I'm up against."

Hermione nodded her agreement, and told him as many things as she could think of over the next hour. Finally, the coast came into view along the horizon, and the two breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"Heads up, you two," the pilot said. "Charlie loves to take pot shots at us on our way out of here."

"What does that mean?"

"It means, park your butts on top of these helmets, just in case," he answered, and they did as they were told. When they first heard the pattering noise of gunfire, they weren't even aware that's what it was. Then panic gripped all three of them as they flew over the last bit of forest and headed for the beach beyond.

"Looks like we're home free, you two," he said. "You'll be heading for Hanoi before you know it. They have a room for you there. Bet that will be a welcome change."

Tom and Hermione cast each other a nervous glance. It was one thing to flirt with each other a little, but quite another to spend the night alone in a single room. A blush passed between them at the thought.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Hermione had begun to think it would take forever for the large, over-filled army truck finally delivered her and Tom at a small hotel in the heart of the city. Best Western this place was not, but at least they weren't in the Hanoi Hilton instead. They could easily have been thrown into the prison instead of being assisted in their bid to return to London, as she well knew.

As the two stepped inside their tiny room and took in the fact it contained little more than a bed and a partitioned off bathroom, she began to pace around nervously, her mind lost in thought.

"Don't be so nervous, Hermione," Tom told her softly. "I can sleep on the floor if you want me to—"

"That's not what I'm thinking about," she interrupted him. "Although one would think I would have been just now, considering."

"Then what is on your mind?" he asked as he plopped down and the bed, feeling tired just watching her.

"Getting out of Vietnam and back to London with no passports or visas," she explained. "If we try to leave the country, we're going to have to prove we're English citizens before they'll just let us go."

"I hadn't thought of that," he said as he put his head in his hands.

"Well, I'm fairly certain there's no documentation for a Thomas Gaunt anywhere, and since Hermione Granger hasn't even been born yet, it's a fair bet she's not listed anywhere either."

"Hermione Gaunt," he reminded her with a small smile.

"Hmm?" she asked, her train of thought interrupted.

"You're my wife, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," she said, blushing. "So anyway, the way I see it we have two alternatives. Either we try to get out of the country and into another country with no paperwork—an almost impossible task, by the way-or we're going to have to figure out where to get that paperwork from."

"In a time and place neither of us knows much about," he added as he bit his lip. He had grown tired of watching her pace, so he pulled her down into his lap. "Come here, Mrs. Gaunt. You're going to wear a hole in the floorboards."

Hermione completely lost track of what she was talking about as she finally took in the fact that she was completely alone with this man and would remain that way all night, at the very least, if not longer. They could be stuck here for weeks trying to figure out how to get to London, and even if they did get there, it would be London of 1970. Where did they intend to go once they actually arrived?

But, that wasn't the important issue right then, since they were currently in a Hanoi hotel and Tom was holding her in his lap. She felt her body react to his nearness, and he must have felt it too somehow, because he wriggled uncomfortably as he tried to hide the fact her nearness was greatly affecting him as well.

"This isn't going to be easy, is it?" he asked softly as he leaned his forehead against hers.

"Well, I suppose we need to be adult about the thing," Hermione said, trying for a sensible approach. "We could share this bed and still be good, right? It's not like we're a couple of animals who are acting purely on instinct."

"Speak for yourself," he said huskily.

Hermione felt her heart jump into her throat at the sound in his voice. Of their own accord, her lips sought out his, and had he not turned his head they would have found them. He pulled her tight to him and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"Why'd you do that?" she complained, her voice sounding every bit as husky as his own.

"To save us from ourselves," he told her as he set her on the bed, grabbed a pillow and blankets, and laid them out on the floor to form a makeshift bed for himself. "I'm sure that our emotions are running high just now, but we hardly know each other. I don't want just a couple nights and a good-bye with you. After all, how many other girls do I know who traveled into the past to the exact place and time I traveled to the future?"

Hermione laughed at this pronouncement. "I'd say the number is pretty small."

"There's got to be a significant reason for it," he pointed out. "Things like this don't just happen. That's not how it works—especially not in the Wizarding World."

"Maybe we'd better sleep on it," she suggested. "After all, we've got a lot of stuff to figure out. We've got to get back to England, and we've got to figure out what happened."

"But if we do figure it out, would you return to the future?"

""I suppose that would be expected," she whispered.

"It doesn't have to be," he pointed out. "We could just stay here."

"I don't know, Tom," she said. "I'd have to give that a lot of thought."

"I wouldn't," he said. "If you went to the future, I'd go there with you."

"Go to sleep," Hermione admonished him, and he did his best to try.

#

Tom woke with a start a few hours later to total darkness. He tried to turn on the lights the Muggle way first, but the power seemed to be out so he lit his wand dimly instead so he could find his way over to the toilet. Hermione stirred in her sleep as he went past, and his eyes went straight to the fabric that covered her breasts as her shirt rode up high above her tummy.

I'm going insane, he thought to himself as he took care of his bathroom needs and just sat there for a while with his head in his hands. Not one week ago the only thing he'd cared about was finding a way to become more powerful, and with just one sentence from her pert, pretty mouth the whole idea had just been put into a whole new perspective.

Not for the first time, he speculated on the concept that Hitler's idea was intrinsically flawed, because if there was only one race, the race, that race would just find other ways to divide on other social parameters. It was the same with magicals and Muggles, too. He was proof of that, as was the girl who slept in the bed nearby. They both had Muggle blood in their veins, to varying degrees, and yet both of them seemed more powerful than anyone else he could think of.

Since he'd been sorted into Slytherin house at the age of eleven, he'd been spoon-fed the concept that Mud-bloods were somehow inferior, but then they'd tolerated, and eventually accepted him because he had such power and a mother of Slytherin descent. The very thing they were against, and not only did they accept him, they had begun to revere him as well.

He'd been beginning to feel like a bit of a hypocrite now that he had graduated. Perhaps even before that, he conceded. It seemed like all his life he had been at odds with who he was, and what purpose he was meant to serve. For a while he'd thought he was meant to carry out the noble work of Salazar Slytherin by killing Muggle students, but he had come to realize soon after opening the Chamber of Secrets that the work was far from noble after all.

Tom sighed and headed back toward his make-shift bed, but leaned heavily on the wall when he spotted Hermione's shirt again. Her white bra was peeking out now, and his fingers itched to touch her. Her tousled hair called out to be played with, and her beautiful round behind was no longer hidden under the blankets in the heat of the night. He closed his eyes against the sight as he forced himself to return to the floor.

Tom had done some very bad things in his past, he had to admit, but he did not begin to feel that he was irredeemably lost. Even these men here, these soldiers, had killed other men. That was how he saw himself in regard to what he'd done—simply a soldier fighting in a war, however misguided. As a member of Slytherin, it had been his duty to act in a Slytherin manner.

But here and now, he wasn't a Slytherin, he wasn't fighting a Slytherin war. Perhaps he had come here to get away from all of that, to gain a new perspective from the eyes of this beautiful girl, to find a reason to live that he'd never seen as possible before. Thomas Gaunt had not fashioned himself to be called Lord Voldemort, and he was certain that his disappearance must have put an end to the entire direction his life had been heading.

Satisfied that the world made some sense after all, Tom drifted slowly off to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Hermione opened the door when she heard a knock, and Tom picked up his bedding and tossed it onto the bed so it looked like they'd shared. It was the maid.

"I come to see if you need room clean," she said in her heavy accent. "The lieutenant say you two are newlyweds, yes?"

"Yes," Hermione said with a blush.

"I know of a beautiful place you may wish to see," she offered with a slight bow. "It is a lake, with a big waterfall. Very pretty."

"Where is it?" asked Tom with a smile. Hermione glanced at him in surprise.

"It is not very far away, you find if you follow the trail," she answered. "You go now, if you like, while I make room ready for tonight."

"Thank you," he said. "I think we will."

He wrapped Hermione's cloak around her shoulders and put on his own as well, and the two of them left together hand in hand.

"What was that about?" she asked him.

"It sounds like a nice place," he answered. "I wouldn't mind a nice swim, and it's probably a lot warmer water than either of us is used to."

"I suppose," Hermione agreed. "But we need to think about finding someone to forge us some papers."

"We've got time," he said as he drew her closer and put an arm around her shoulders. "You need to learn to have some fun. Life isn't always so serious."

Hermione sighed. She knew Tom was right, she was always too wrapped up in her studies or her work or in getting things done. The word 'relax' was seldom in her vocabulary. But when they reached the lake shore and she saw the waterfall, she was too enchanted to continue her businesslike thoughts.

"It's lovely," she said on a sigh as she gazed at the rippling water. Tom pushed her in with a laugh, and dived right in after her. Hermione screeched in surprise, and then turned around to start splashing him. "You've absolutely ruined our clothes," she pointed out.

"It had to be done, Mione," he said with a grin.

Hermione laughed and dove under the water, but never came up for air.

Tom felt an eerie silence settle around him. He could hear birds calling out to each other in the jungle beyond, but his ears could pick up no sound that would give him a clue where she had gone. Then, on the other side of the lake, he thought he heard the muffled cry of a woman's voice.

He was on the other shore almost before the sound was gone, and there he found a group of three men. One of them held a struggling Hermione in his grasp. Tom tore his wand out from under his cloak and aimed it at the man's face.

"Let her go," he threatened.

"Or what, G.I. man? You going to beat me with your big stick?" he asked in his heavy accent. "Don't you know it is not wise to wander alone in the middle of a war zone?"

"I don't need a stick to take care of you," Tom snarled at the man. Seeing his hands on Hermione made his blood boil so hot he could barely contain his rage.

"You hold the girl," he said, shoving Hermione toward one of the others. "I will teach this dog a lesson."

"Leave me alone!" Hermione screamed when the other man started to fondle her breasts.

All of the anger Tom had been suppressing boiled out of him, and he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Avada Kedavra!" A green light shot out of his wand and hit the man squarely in his head, leaving Hermione gaping as his hands fell away from her body and the man crumpled to the ground.

"He is a devil!" shouted the third man, and he turned to run.

"Avada Kedavra!" Tom shouted again, killing him.

Hermione stared at the once calm young man she had been keeping company with for the last few days in shocked surprise. His eyes were wild and his power was terrible to behold. Her heart beat faster in her chest as he faced the third man, who just stood there gaping at him.

"You don't get the stick," Tom informed him in a voice gone deadly calm. He stuffed the wand back into his cloak and took several measured steps in his direction. The other man lunged at him and kicked toward his face, but Tom caught him by the leg and yanked hard, and the man toppled into the water. By the frightened look on his face, it seemed clear he had just realized the stick was not so bad after all.

"May the gods curse you to hell," the man shouted as he tried to wriggle away. But Tom was nowhere near done with him. He let him think he could succeed in his attempts for a few moments, then walked over and grabbed him by the hair. "I don't share what's mine, you little bastard," he told him. "And this woman belongs to me, because I want her, and because somehow it is fate's design."

He slammed the man's head down on a boulder again and again. The look on his face went from deadly calm to a rage that looked like it would boil right out of him. Blood darkened the water to a deep red and still he did not stop.

"Tom, stop it!" Hermione finally demanded. "You're frightening me."

"This man touched you," he growled. "He deserves to die."

"He's been dead at least three minutes now," Hermione pointed out, and Tom stopped what he was doing to cast a stunned look in her direction. His wild eyes returned to some semblance of normalcy, and the next thing he knew he broke out into tears of disbelief. What had he done? He'd tried so hard to convince himself that he was not evil, and yet not one day had passed until he had killed someone again.

"But he deserved it," he sobbed as he stared at his bloody hands. "He deserved it, Hermione." He wasn't sure if he was trying to convince her, or trying to convince himself.

"He did, Tom," she reassured him as she laid his bloody face against her chest and just held him. "He really did."

"Now I really have ruined our clothes," he said with a laugh amid his sobbing.

Hermione looked at them and suppressed her own laugh. She should not find anything funny about this. And yet somehow, as they stood knee-deep in red, he managed to draw her laughter out anyway. The two of them laughed together and then cried together, and then headed back toward the hotel, not at all sure of the reception they would receive should anyone see them just then.

They made it to their room unnoticed, and Tom plopped down on the bed and almost immediately fell asleep. Silently Hermione removed his cloak and his shirt, and scrubbed out the blood in the toilet. When she was sure they were clean enough, she undressed herself behind the curtain and stepped into the shower to clean herself off as well.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

Hermione curled up next to Tom in the bed and cuddled against his back. She didn't know exactly when she had fallen asleep, but when they woke up later it had grown dark outside. Tom rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, and Hermione just watched him.

"You okay?" she asked softly when he hadn't moved for a while.

Tom sighed. "I just killed three men in cold blood," he said. "Just how okay do you expect me to be?"

"Well, there is that," she agreed with a shake of her head. "But if you hadn't killed them, it's almost certain they would have killed us—or worse."

"You're just trying to make me feel better," he answered as his eyes looked over into hers.

"No, if that was all I was trying to do, talking would not be the first thing on my agenda," she said. "There is actually documented evidence that states post-homicidal coitus is probably the number one way to make someone feel better about killing. Something about proving that they are still alive—"

"Would you stop?" he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. "Who in their right mind actually interviewed a murderer to see if sex made him feel better after the fact? Of course sex made him feel better. Sex always makes a man feel better."

Hermione giggled.

"You're making it up, aren't you?" he asked with a grin.

"I heard it from a little bird," she said innocently. "We need to clean the rest of your clothes and get you into a nice, hot shower though. I'm sure you'd feel better after that, in any case."

"So, you're not afraid to have taken up with a homicidal maniac with a huge penchant towards getting jealous?" he asked lightly as he sat up beside her.

"Only if you're not afraid to have taken up with a girl with such a morbid curiosity that she would read all about homicidal maniacs wanting to have sex," she answered as she lay on her back and put her hands under her head.

"This whole conversation is insane," he pointed out. "I've got a better use for those lips."

Having said this, Tom leaned over, about to kiss her soundly, when suddenly there was a knock on the door.

"Who could that be?" Hermione whispered nervously, her eyes going wide.

"I'll find out," he said.

"You can't answer the door wearing no shirt and bloody pants and hands you still haven't washed since you bashed some guy's head in on a rock," she pointed out. "I'd better see if I can make whoever it is go away, and come back later. You'd better go get a shower."

"You're probably right," he agreed as he looked at his blood-soaked hands. He balled them up into fists and then went behind the screen to get undressed while Hermione answered the door.

"Mrs. Gaunt?" said a decidedly British man as he extended a hand in her direction.

"Yes," she answered questioningly.

"I'm Bradford Davis, from the British Embassy," he explained. "I'd like to have a word with the two of you, if that's possible."

"Tom's just getting into the shower," Hermione said, her cheeks pinkening prettily as she pretended to be embarrassed by this statement.

"That's all right," he said with a slight smile. "You can meet me in the lobby of the hotel when you're ready, and we can have dinner together. This is a matter of some importance. I'll be expecting the two of you shortly."

"Yes, sir," she agreed, and shut the door again.

Hermione could hear the water hitting Tom's body, and it sounded as though he was standing there, not moving. She wondered if he was staring off into space again, thinking about what had happened earlier at the lake. She wanted to go and check on him, but the thought was so embarrassing that she blushed a deep shade of crimson and covered her mouth and nose with her hands.

At least the view would be nice, she thought with a somewhat lascivious grin. She called out to him instead, saying, "How's the water, darling?"

"Why don't you come find out?" he challenged her with a chuckle.

Hermione was relieved by the sound. If he was teasing her, he wasn't exactly comatose in there.

"Well, you know I would, babe, but we've just been invited out to dinner."

Tom stepped out wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. He was using a second towel to dry his hair, and that was the one he tossed at Hermione as he stepped past her to sit down on the bed.

"I have a problem with that," he said ruefully. "Am I supposed to wear my bloodied trousers, or perhaps just attend in my birthday attire?"

"I vote for birthday," Hermione said with a naughty laugh.

"As much as I'd like to be accommodating," said Tom as he stood and wrapped her into his arms, "I have a feeling that would not go over very well with anyone else. Who is it we'll be dining with, by the way?"

"At least one member of the British Embassy," she said. "I'm very curious to see how that goes."

"I'm certain they checked our story out by now and they're going to try to find out why we're really here," said Tom as he furrowed his brow in thought. "Now, we need to both have the same story in case they separate us. We should probably come up with something before we go."

"Let me scrub your pants while we talk," Hermione suggested. "If they aren't dry by the time we get there you can always say the shower flooded or something. It doesn't drain well anyway, so that's not much of a stretch."

"Slow down, girl," said Tom. "I had something I wanted to take care of, first, before someone interrupts again."

"What?" she asked. He answered by covering her lips with his own. The kiss, which he'd meant to be just a small taste, escalated into a carnal attack on both of their senses. If they weren't clinging to each other so desperately it was highly likely they would have toppled right over.

"You taste so good," he whispered against her lips. "I never knew there was anything so sweet in the world."

Hermione smiled, and a few kisses later managed to say, "This is not getting your pants washed."

"No, but it's making me think I should get back into the shower and make it really cold," he teased her. When she giggled at this, his tongue snaked between her parted lips and found its way deep inside her mouth. Hermione gasped and clung to him more than ever. Tom kissed her and kissed her until he wanted to drag her over to the bed and throw her down for a thorough ravishment. He took a deep breath and gently set her away from him. "We need to get ready. Perhaps we could try to magic off the blood."

"That might work," Hermione agreed, and took out her wand to zap his pants a couple of times, once on the front and once on the back. "Seems presentable enough, I guess. I'm glad you thought of it."

"Well, Mrs. Gaunt? Are we ready?"

"You have to put the pants on first," she reminded him playfully.

"That wasn't what I was talking about," he said with a broad grin.

"Go get dressed, you horny man," she commanded, and he did.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Hermione, before we go, there's something I need to tell you," said Tom as he stepped back out fully clothed. His face was screwed up with indecision, but she could tell that whatever was on his mind was winning out over saying nothing at all.

"What is it, Tom?" she asked.

"I need to tell you something about my past, about how horrid I was. Back there, right before we ended up here, I had a conversation with someone about Adolph Hitler. About whether or not it was wise, or even necessary, to create a pure bloodline, in either the Muggle world or our own. When I was at Hogwarts I was sorted into Slytherin, and we were taught by our Housemaster that bloodline was everything. It was pounded into us all from day one, and so I bought into this idea and embraced it as my own."

"It's complete rubbish, you know," said Hermione, somewhat offended.

"Yes, it is," he agreed. "But I so much wanted to fit in that I refashioned myself until they could almost believe that I, too, was pureblood. And I was so powerful that even those who knew better still respected me. I grew to crave that acceptance, that respect, and eventually, even that worship. But it was all a lie, and I was finding myself at a bit of a crossroad in my mind. Should I continue on to became dark and powerful, or should I do what, deep inside, I knew was right?"

"It's always better to follow your heart, Tom," she said.

"When I found myself here, and realized that we were in another place and time than I was in before, I saw it as an opportunity to make myself over again," he said softly. "I want you to know this, in case it comes to light, I want you to hear it from me first, but I'm afraid to tell you what I was. Those three men were not my first kill, Hermione. I've done some really bad things in my past, and I had hoped to put them behind me—"

"I don't want to know, Tom," she said quickly as she took one of his hands in hers. She was afraid she might know what he was about to say, and if she was right she just couldn't handle that right now. Not so soon after she'd found him. "You can be someone new here. You don't have to let the past dictate your future. To me you are Thomas Gaunt, because he is the man you have chosen to be. What difference can it make who you were before?"

"I'm pretty sure it would make a difference," said Tom on a shaky breath. "Do you know, I can't remember the last time I shed even a single tear—it quite took me by surprise today, that swell of emotions. I wondered why, but I begin to think I know. It was because of you, Hermione. I thought that you would leave me when you saw what I'd done. I think I would rather die than have that happen. Silly, isn't it? We haven't known each other long, but it feels so right, you being my wife. I only wish it were true."

Hermione laughed. "That's not too hard to fix, you know," she mentioned.

"And I think we should fix it," he said with a small smile. "Because truth be told, if I have to spend one more night near you, I know it'll put me over the edge. And in my time, if you wanted to make love to a girl like you, you had to marry her first."

"Well, a lot has changed in the world since your time," said Hermione. "Nowadays people are more likely to make love before they marry, just to make sure it's what they want."

"You want to do that?" he asked, somewhat disgusted by the notion.

"I don't need to do that to know it's right between us, Tom," she reassured him. "I want the same things you want. To carve out some kind of a life here, and to be your wife while I'm doing it."

Tom pulled Hermione against him and kissed her soundly. His hands slid down her torso until they were cupping her gorgeous behind, and he pushed the lower part of her more firmly against him so she could tell just how much wanting there really was. Hermione gasped in surprise, but she didn't try to move away. She liked it far too much.

"So, we need to stick to the same story at dinner," said Tom as he set her back on her feet again. "I'm certain they'll know the story about flying to Egypt is crap."

"Unless we tell them we were in a private plane," Hermione told him.

"Private plane?" he repeated, somewhat surprised. "They actually have those?"

"Yep, although I'm not sure about in 1970, though. I'm still thinking like it's almost the next century," she said. "So, if they can't find anything that says we're British citizens, and they know we didn't really crash land, what the devil are we supposed to tell them?"

"I know, let's tell them that we were somehow transported through time and met each other in a cave, and the attraction was so intense and so instant we figured out we must have come here for each other, but now we have no idea where to go from here—"

"Do you really think that's why we're here, Tom, just to find each other?" Hermione asked. "I rather like the sound of that. It's sort of romantic."

"Well, plus I get to have a chance to be someone other than the man I feared I was about to become," he added. "That's always a plus."

"So, then, why did I get sent back? I wasn't having any real issues with who I'm likely to become," Hermione pointed out. "Unless of course, somebody up there knows something I don't know."

Tom laughed. "You look so serious, Hermione," he told her. "I think they sent you back because they knew you would be good for me. Since the first time I saw you, you've made me want to be a better man—a man that you could respect and admire."

"Well, what are we going to tell these people, then?"

"Perhaps we should wait until we find out what they are going to tell us," Tom suggested when he still couldn't think of a plausible story. The trouble was, there was nothing plausible about their story.

"All right, but I'd better be the one to improvise though, you don't know enough history to think on the fly," she said. Tom was watching her lips instead of listening to her. "What are you doing?"

"Sorry, I just can't get over how beautiful you are," he said. "Come on then, let's go."

#

"There you two are," said Bradford Davis as the couple entered the hotel lobby. "We've got a car waiting just outside. I suggest that if you have any belongings that are not with you, that you may want to go get them."

"Nothing I can think of," said Tom suspiciously. "Where exactly are you planning on taking us, sir?"

"Well, I think it might be best if we get there first, all things considered," the man hedged. "Just suffice it to say, this is no place for a wizarding couple to be visiting at a time like this."

"How do you know about that?" Hermione asked, her eyes wide with concern.

"We have our ways," he assured her. "If you'll just come with me."

"Do we have any choice in the matter?" Tom wanted to know.

"I think that we can form a mutually beneficial arrangement, Mr. Gaunt," he said as he headed for the door. "Unless of course you'd rather remain stuck in the middle of a war without so much as a passport and no way to get home."

"We should probably go with him, Tom," Hermione said. "This is the part where we have no idea where to go next, remember. This guy may just have a clue."

"You're right," he told her. "I do."


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

The three of them were only about half way to the limousine waiting outside when they heard fighting off in the background. But it didn't sound like gunfire—more like wand fire.

"Wizards, in the middle of the Vietnamese War?" Hermione asked as she tried to look behind her.

"Yes, my dear, I'm afraid so," said Tom as he, too, looked back, and took the opportunity to put a hand on the nape of his companion's neck to turn her away.

"COMSEC, we're too late," Bradford said into a strange-looking device on his wrist. "I'm going to try to get these two out of here unscathed, but our chances are pretty slim if our British connection knows he's here."

"Just what other explanation could there be?" said a man's voice. He sounded extremely upset.

"What are you talking about?" Tom demanded to know as the man practically shoved the two into the car. "Why are there wizards here, and where do you think you're taking us?"

"Quiet now, I need to tell you as much as I can before it's too late," said the man as the driver sped off away from the green, red and blue blasts of color. "Those wizards are looking for you, Tom, as you may well have guessed by now. I'm sure I don't have to go into a lot of detail when I say this, but after your time jump someone got ahold of some of your DNA and used some sort of regrowth spell, and your other self apparently can sense your presence. He's come to take you with him, to England, and it's almost certain he will."

"My—other self?" he gasped. "Bloody hell!"

"I only found out about this whole story recently, so you'll have to bear with me," he continued. "Apparently whoever grew the other you did an experiment with impregnating an American woman with your DNA as well, which resulted in the birth of a man now known as Ted Bundy. We don't know what significance there is to that as of yet, but we suspect he's going to be in need of watching."

"I'll say," Hermione interjected with a shocked expression on her face. Tom put his arm around her and pulled her closer, trying to comfort her. She didn't look very comforted, however, leading him to wonder just what she knew about this Ted bloke that she wasn't saying.

The car shook violently then, and came to a complete stop.

"Too late to tell you the rest, I'm afraid," Bradford said. "You're on your own from here on out."

"Thanks a lot," Tom grumbled as both the driver and the man who had just dropped the bomb made good their escape.

"Hermione, I need to tell you something," Tom began nervously. "It's about who we're about to get captured by—"

"Just kiss me quick, before he gets here," she pleaded. "I want to remember what you taste like."

"Too bad the blighter won't take a bit longer," he mentioned as he crushed her to him. "I want to remember what you taste like, too."

Hermione had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't talking about her lips just then—at least, not the ones he was currently kissing. His questing hands confirmed this as she moaned softly into his mouth. It was amazing just how much a person could be aroused in just a matter of seconds.

#

The two of them broke apart when they heard the driver's door and one of the back doors open. A man who looked like an older version of Tom stepped in and sat across from them in the other seat of the limousine. He barely glanced at Hermione, and then looked at his younger self instead.

"Hello, Tom," said the younger man with a grim smile. "I didn't expect to have the pleasure of meeting myself here."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't," he agreed. "No one calls me by that name anymore. It's sort of too personal for the man I have become. You do know who I have become, do you not?"

"Unfortunately, no," Tom mentioned. "I didn't even know you existed until about two minutes ago."

"You mean you couldn't feel me, as I have felt you?" he inquired. "Pity."

"My mind has been on—other things," he excused himself, and his eyes barely flickered in Hermione's direction.

"I can see why," he said appreciatively as he, too, looked at the pretty blonde who had just been sucking face with the youngster. "Tell, me, Tom, has it occurred to you that this would be quite an interesting—diversion, if we should all three—"

"Don't finish that filthy thought, or I swear I'll muss up that pretty face I know you like so well,"said Tom on a snarl.

"Only think of this," he added lasciviously. "If she were to get pregnant, there would be no way of knowing which one of us had done the deed." He seemed to be very amused to have thought of this, if his evil smirk was any indicator.

Hermione moved to claw his eyes out, but Tom held her back. "Don't, Hermione. You have no idea who you are dealing with here."

"Well, at least I know it's not Ted Bundy," she blurted out furiously.

"Hey, whoever that bloke is, I had no way of knowing about it, so don't go blaming me," Tom said irritably. "I can only account for things I may have done up until the jump, not what anybody did to me or for me afterwards. I'm just saying."

Peals of laughter echoed through the cab as the older Tom took in this exchange. "Don't let him fool you, my sweet. Ol' Tom here was no angel, even then."

"He already told me that," she said, almost triumphantly.

"Driver, you know what to do," Tom said to the man in the front seat, which brought him to Hermione's attention.

"Yes, my Lord."

"Professor Snape?" she gasped as she stared at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I got sucked back here, too, no thanks to you," he commented in his customary sneer. "The next time you want to play with your little toys, Granger, I suggest you do it away from me."

"This is just getting too weird," Hermione complained. "So then, if you're with him, and he's your Lord, this must be—"

"Lord Voldemort, at your service, my lady," he said with an almost playful grin.

"Just keep your hands off that lady," Tom growled as he saw him extend a hand in her direction. "I saw her first."

"Are you so certain?" Voldemort asked him cryptically.

"Then let me rephrase that, in words even an imbecile can understand," said Tom, emphasizing each word. "I saw this version of her first, and I'm not bloody well going to share."

"Ok, I'm beginning to think I'm just having a nightmare, and I sure as hell wish I'd wake up now," said Hermione as she moved to grab the door handle and leave the whole mess behind.

"Hermione, don't!" both Toms shouted at the same time, and interestingly enough, with equal degrees of concern.

"My God, I need some air," she practically screamed as she fiddled with the knob to open the window, at the very least. "You people are driving me crazy!"

"It's all right, sweetie, just calm down," Tom—her Tom—said softly as he rubbed her back. "We'll sort all of this out, won't we, men?"

"Of course we will," they both agreed.

Hermione passed out against the open window.


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

Hermione opened her eyes and looked around. She was lying in a bed in a room with the curtains drawn shut to block out the bright sunlight beyond. She rubbed her eyes to see if she would suddenly realize she was back in her dorm room after all, but everything remained as it was.

"Where am I?" she asked softly when she saw someone sitting in a chair across the room.

"Finally awake?" Tom asked as he turned to look at her. It wasn't her Tom, it was Lord Voldemort.

"Why am I in here with you?" she asked, making sure to emphasize the 'you' so as to make her dislike quite clear.

Voldemort chuckled and wiped a hand over his face. "Don't you want to be?"

"Of course not!" she said in exasperation. "What have you done with Tom?"

"I am Tom," he reminded her with a raise of his eyebrows. "You weren't ever supposed to meet the other one, you know. It was all supposed to go as smooth as clockwork."

"What was supposed to go as smooth as clockwork?" Hermione demanded.

"Do you know, time travel is an interesting thing," he pointed out. "Take you, for example. After I killed Harry Potter in some alternate future you were in, you came back in time to stop me, but then you went and got yourself killed and I was so depressed I became me anyway. Does that make any sense at all?"

"I suppose," she said as she sat up to look at him more fully. "But then why did I go back this time, before any of that ever happened, and why should you care if I died anyway?"

"It's a kind of paradox, you see," he said. He stood and walked over to sit beside her on the bed, and Hermione desperately wanted to move away, but was determined to hold her ground. "I don't know how many times we've met now, possibly four if you count the youngster, but only three times otherwise. Each time we have met, you didn't know me, but the last two times I have known exactly who you were. You see, the last time we were together for ten years, and you gave me a daughter and a son, but you died birthing that son. I missed you so much I thought, why not just bring her back again, before she came back the first time?"

"Ok, so what went wrong?"

"Somehow my spell must have backfired, and you found the me that disappeared a long time ago," he explained. "I had thought he was dead, just like Borgin said once he'd regrown me, and told me he didn't want the Death Eaters to kill him for blowing up their Lord."

"But if that's so, when did we meet the first time and all that?"

"The first time, Dumbledore sent you back to—distract me from my purpose, in about 1947. You got hired on as a librarian, and since I have such a great love of books as well as you do, we sort of clicked. Only I found out why you were really there, and I must admit I was angry, so I killed you."

"You killed me?" she gasped.

"Yes, I did," he admitted. "It was rather foolish of me, as I realized later on, and so I found a way to bring you back when you were only just turned seventeen, before the war happened, so you wouldn't know about it. Of course, you still knew about Lord Voldemort and so it wasn't easy to win your heart, but I persisted because I knew we were meant to be."

Hermione frowned and shook her head. "What makes you think so?"

"Because right after I'd killed you that first time, I couldn't get you out of my mind, or my heart, no matter how much I tried. I busied myself with becoming as evil as possible just because I did not believe love could remain amidst such mayhem," he explained, and took her hand in his. Hermione would have pulled away, but something in his eyes made her pause. "You have no idea the things I have done, the spells I have learned, the women I have used, all because I wanted you so much. And then one day, I suddenly realized that just because I'd killed you didn't mean you were dead. You had come from the future—all I had to do was find a way to bring you back again."

"So, you brought me back to the 60's?" she clarified.

"1958," he corrected her. "You died two years ago."

"I sure seem to die an awful lot," Hermione mentioned.

"I noticed," he said with a grim sort of grin. "But you're here now, that's what is important."

"If you kill me again, what are you going to do, go get me when I'm fifteen next time?" she asked with a sarcastic frown.

"Hermione, don't get all grumpy," he admonished her. "You should be flattered that one man would want you so much. The only trouble is, right this moment I'm not just one man."

"That's true," she said. "And also, I'm kind of in love with the other one."

"Has it gotten as far as all that?" he asked. "Did you—well, do it, already?"

"Of course not!" she gasped, ready to slap his face. Voldemort caught both her hands in his, and put them both behind her back as he pulled her body against his own.

"You belong to me, Hermione," he whispered against her lips. "Always and forever. You told me so yourself."

"But that wasn't me, my Lord," she reminded him. "That wasn't me any more than Tom is you. Each of us has lived alternate lives, and I cannot begin to imagine how I would have come to love you as you are now."

"It all comes down to one simple truth, my dear," he said with a grin before he kissed her softly on her frowning lips. "Opposites attract."

"Please don't," Hermione pleaded as she realized his kisses had almost the exact same effect on her regardless of which Tom he was, contrary to what she had expected. It had to be a purely physical response, she knew, and yet she could not resist those eyes of his, the way they looked into her own and made her melt. "I don't want you, not the evil Lord Voldemort who cares nothing for anything but obtaining power at any cost."

"What do you want, then?" he asked as his lips traced a path down toward her breasts.

"Someone who wants the same things I do, I suppose," she whispered. "Stop that, that tickles!" she protested when he found a spot just above her breast and started to nibble.

"I know," he answered wickedly. "And then there's that spot behind your knee—"

Hermione tried to get away from him, but he laid her on the bed underneath him, and she could feel his hard, eager cock pressed against her thigh.

"This isn't right," she whispered as a tear slipped down her cheek. "I'm so confused, I don't know how I should feel, but I want this to be with him—but you are him, too."

"Crazy, isn't it?" he agreed. "And the worst of it is, if I don't start that bloody war you'll never come back in the first place, and that's a possibility I cannot abide."

"So, you're saying that you have to do it, no matter what?" she asked.

"That's the paradox, my dear," he told her. "Be with me, Mione. I can't change what I am, and that's a lesson he just hasn't learned yet. I remember how I felt that day, how much I wanted to change the direction I was headed, but somehow it always pulls me back in, and you have always been the one thing that has saved me from myself."

"But who's going to save me from you?" she wanted to know. Voldemort kissed her quite passionately then, and in spite of her best efforts to resist, she couldn't stop her destiny any more than he could stop his.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

Hermione glanced up and saw Lord Voldemort watching her, and she couldn't decide if she should smile or scowl. Her face made up her mind for her by doing neither, instead giving him the most sensual look he'd ever surprised on it to date—and that was saying something.

He went over to join her at the table, where she had just begun to eat her meal. Her cheeks pinkened prettily as she recalled falling asleep in his arms earlier that day. He had been gone when she awakened, and this was the first she had seen of him since. She should really be upset with him for taking what he wanted and then disappearing, but for the life of her the anger just wasn't in her.

She tried not to think about Tom as Voldemort leaned over her to smell her hair before taking his seat. He smiled warmly, and took the goblet of wine from the Death Eater woman who usually served the meals with barely a glance.

Hermione couldn't help herself as she watched those magic lips of his press against the rim of the glass. She could clearly see them in her mind's eye as they'd done something similar to her breasts earlier. God, she needed to stop. And trying to make herself stop by thinking of Tom instead was no help at all, since he was just a younger version of the man who was now before her. It was simply maddening that she could find no way to quell these crazy emotions.

"I've something to tell you, Hermione," Voldemort said softly. "It seems the youngster has flown the coop with your old time turner. He could be anywhere by now, and I have no way to locate the blighter since he took the thing I've been using to go where I will."

"What?" Hermione gasped, hurt by this news. "But, why would he do that? I was certain he would try to steal me from you and whisk me off into hiding."

"My romantic girl," he chuckled indulgently. "I told him the same thing I told you, about us, and I believe he must have realized that I have a home, and we have a history, and he has gone off to lick his wounds. I'm certain of it. You won't be seeing Thomas Gaunt anytime soon, so I guess you're just stuck with me."

"I—" she began, and then worked at her jaw rather than finish what she would have said—'I wouldn't exactly say stuck'. She and Tom had never done anything, after all. They'd simply been very attracted, and she hadn't really lost him anyway, had she? He was still sitting right here in front of her. Sure, this one was a twisted copy and he had been the original, but Hermione was too practical for her own good. He still tasted the same, had the same voice, and made her heart thud in the same way, regardless. But she should not be so accepting of this whole thing. It was completely unlike her.

"What are you thinking about, my sweet?" Voldemort wanted to know as he watched the influx of emotions that played across her face.

"Nothing, my Lord," she lied.

"Come now, there shall be no secrets between us," he insisted. "You cannot know how I've longed for you these last two years. So, you told me you want someone who wants what you want, Hermione, but what you fail to realize is, I'm offering you exactly that. A place to call your own, with the man you love by your side to share it. Yes, I know this from before, my dear, though it would not greatly surprise me to find you'd repeated it to him, as well."

"I did," she said speculatively. "That is so odd."

"Odd that you are still you, no matter that time passes?" Voldemort scoffed. "You can't shed your core personality like you shed an old pair of sneakers, you know. Young Tom will find this out, wherever he's gone off to. You'll see it for yourself as well, in due time."

"I can't shake the feeling that there's more to this than you are telling me, Lord Voldemort," said Hermione suspiciously. "And what happened to Snape, by the way? One minute he's here, and the next he is not? It doesn't make any sense."

"You know, I have no idea what became of Snape," said Voldemort, though he did not look at her as he said it. "He seems to have disappeared ever since we got back to England. I've been so busy with you, I haven't given him a thought."

"Where did you go, my Lord, after you devirginized me in your bed—again?"

"I am the Dark Lord, Hermione," he reminded her. "You don't think I would have no business to attend to after being gone all week trying to figure out where you'd gone and why I felt him?"

"I hadn't given the matter much thought," she admitted. "I just supposed you had your minions do all the work."

With a delighted chuckle, Voldemort threaded his fingers through her hair and brought her face closer to his. "Always so practical, Hermione. Do you know, when you're thinking really hard at something you get that little crinkle in your brow. I love to kiss it until it goes away and your eyes get all liquid with sweet, hot desire instead—just like they're doing right now."

"Surely not," she said circumspectly as she tried to turn away. Her cheeks grew flushed when he didn't let her, but instead kissed her as he had just described until she really did get eyes filled with liquid desire.

"I think we'd better take this conversation elsewhere," Voldemort said on a husky whisper. Then he swept Hermione up into his arms and carried her right out of the dining hall and up to his bed. She didn't even try to protest, partly because she knew he wouldn't listen, but mostly because she desperately wanted to go.

As he laid her on the bed Voldemort took the opportunity to give her a much deeper kiss. Their tongues twined together as his questing hands found one breast each to play with. Hermione moaned into his mouth, and when next he bared her breasts and took a taste, she moaned even louder.

Her fingers splayed across his chest, seeking until she found the edge of his shirt and yanked it free of his waistband. He sat up long enough to pull it off, and then returned to kissing her again. His tongue trailed hot fire down the column of her throat on a journey down her body, stopping only so he could undress each part along the way.

"No fair, you're not all the way undressed," said Hermione playfully as she undid his pants. He slid them off along with his underwear all at once so he could be done with it that much sooner, and get back to what he was doing. He really had missed her, and she was about to find out just how much.

"You're so beautiful, Hermione," he whispered against her lips. "You're the brightest light in my dark, dark world. Promise you won't go away and leave me alone again."

"How can I promise that, my Lord, when I cannot predict what the future holds?" she pointed out. "I'm pretty sure I didn't mean to die on you last time, so how do I know I won't do it again?"

"Don't say that, Mione," he whispered. "I couldn't bear it."

"And what about you?" she added. "If you follow history, you're going to pretty much be dead in about ten years—at least until you get revived again."

"Really?"

"Well, yes, as far as I know."

"Then let's make the best of the years we have, Mione," he said. "Starting with this kiss right here, and working our way up from there."

Hermione had to admit, it was a kiss worth remembering.


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Daddy, Daddy, it's almost time for bed, and you haven't said good-night to us yet!" shouted a young girl as she scampered into the room a few hours later, and stopped short when she saw Hermione in his bed with him. "Oh, sorry, I didn't know you weren't alone."

"It's okay, Melody, it's just your Mommy," he told her with an indulgent smile.

"She can't be my Mommy, our Mommy died when she had Tommy," the girl insisted as she looked Hermione over suspiciously.

"Well, it's kind of weird, but she somehow came back out of the sky and floated back down here again," Voldemort explained. "I think it's because she knew that you and I missed her very much."

"Really?" the girl inquired as she looked even closer at the woman in her father's bed. "How very interesting. So, Mommy, what was it like living up in the sky?"

"I really don't remember," Hermione told her as she tried not to burst into tears. This was her daughter, a child she'd had with the man at her side. And there was another child around here somewhere as well. A swell of emotion built up inside her, and her throat tightened so that she could not speak again.

"Oh, my," Melody whispered. "Have I done something wrong?"

"Mommy is very tired from her journey right now, scamp," Voldemort told the girl when he saw the expression on her face. "Why don't you and brother go see nurse and have her tuck you into bed, and we can talk more about all of this tomorrow?"

"All right," she agreed, though not very willingly. "It's wonderful to see you again, Mommy. I hope you're here to stay this time." The girl came forward and gave her a really big, wet kiss before she ran back out again. Harmony's tears ran freely down her cheeks now that her child could not see them.

"You knew how that would get to me, didn't you?" Hermione accused Voldemort. "You knew if you couldn't convince me to stay here, that she could."

"No, I was counting on you staying just because of me," he answered with a grin. "But if she's a help to my cause, I'm all for it."

Hermione grabbed a pillow and hit him in the head with it. Voldemort took it away and tossed it off the bed, and then laid on top of her again. When he kissed her this time, it was as though her last vestige of resistance was washed clean away, and she knew that she would stay with him forever, just as she'd apparently told him she would once before.

"This isn't very fair of you, sir," she said with a pout.

"What isn't?"

"You're not the monster the world believes you to be," she said. "It makes me feel guilty over how I've always thought of you."

Voldemort chuckled. "Make no mistake, my dear, I am most definitely not a model citizen. I have killed, and I have corrupted, and I have done many things you would never wish to know about, but I have done all of it because I believe that if you want to change the world, sometimes you have to wreck it first."

"Reminds me of a movie I saw where the hero was always destroying things in his pursuit of the bad guys," she teased him. "So, do you see yourself as a good guy or a bad guy?"

"Neither, just as a man who always goes after what he wants," he told her. "And right now, I want to taste those sweet lips of yours again."

"Poor deprived man," she cooed. "How does it feel to want?"

"Like this," he said, moving so that his lips were inches from her own and then just watching her. Hermione let out the breath she'd taken in anticipation of his kiss, and then kissed him instead when he still didn't do it.

"So then I guess you're the bad guy after all," she said with a pout. "Don't even give a girl a proper kiss—"

"You'll be getting plenty of those before this night is through," he assured her, and pulled her down on top of him to prove it.

#

"Come here, my big beautiful wife, and let me see that belly again," Voldemort teased Hermione as she stepped into their bedroom and smiled at him in greeting. She had spent the last five years with him, and they had been forced to move on many occasions, but the one thing that always remained the same was her husband and kids, and how he never treated her badly in all that time.

Of course, it was true that Voldemort had been terrorizing the world all this time, too, but Hermione had grown to accept the fact that no one liked everything that their spouse did, no matter who they were. It's just that hers did more things she didn't like than other people's did.

Besides, now they were about to have a child—a child that she herself could remember having. He insisted the baby was a boy, but Hermione hoped it was a girl just to spite him.

Eventually her Lord and husband had admitted the truth about the disappearance of Tom and Snape, that the two had gone off into the future together. He remained rather cryptic about the reasons for this, however, merely told her that their actions would pave the way to a better future. Knowing Voldemort, that could mean just about anything.

She sometimes thought about the younger Tom during those years, about how he had wanted a better life, and wanted to be a better man for her. Would he still say that now, after all this time? Would he want her now that she had been with his older self all these years? But it didn't bear thinking about, because she was with Tom in the first place, and that younger man and he were one and the same man.

It still confused her sometimes, trying to sort out her feelings for the two. She had finally given up trying to sort it all out, and simply accepted that she loved the man no matter who he was, or how many of him there were. She did not question the idea that there really were soul mates in the world, because she was with hers now.

"Come see your daddy, little one," she said to her tummy as she stepped across the room and into his arms. "We are very much looking forward to your arrival, you know."

"Yes, we are," Voldemort agreed as he rubbed his child. "And so are Melody and little Tom. We are all looking forward to it."

The baby gave a big kick in response, and Hermione nearly doubled over from it.

"Definitely a boy," said proud Daddy with a grin.

"What a sexist statement," Hermione scoffed. "You're lucky we're still back in the seventies. You would never get away with that in my era."

The window shattered all of the sudden, and Voldemort went to look out into the courtyard.

"Aurors, or worse," he announced with an annoyed frown. "Gather the children and get them out of here, I'll rally the Death Eaters."

"My place is by your side, as always," Hermione insisted. "I didn't learn all those spells just so you could send me off with the kids. You'll need every wand you can get."

"Not the wand of a woman so pregnant she can't even walk," he insisted. "Now go, do as I say. I don't want anything to happen to you or our children. I would not want to live, if I did not have all of you."

Hermione sighed deeply, and did as he said.


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Hermione Granger opened her eyes. She'd dozed off in the Gryffindor common room, and had not noticed the time. It was almost midnight on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. She had been reading her history book as usual, and it was sitting beside her on the sofa now.

She looked up when she realized she was not alone in the room, and smiled warmly when she saw who else was there.

"Professor Gaunt? What are you doing here?"

"I couldn't sleep," he admitted.

"You couldn't sleep, so you just happened to come to Gryffindor House when you're in charge of Slytherin?"

He smiled sheepishly. "I remembered it was your birthday, and I wanted to be the first one to wish you well," he explained.

"And what would you have done if I was asleep in my bed, sir?" she inquired with a heady giggle. He was her favorite teacher, and truth be told, she had a bit of a crush on the handsome historian. She always loved to go to class, and listen to his voice as he told her all about the past. But she should not be thinking about that now, not here in a darkened room while the two were alone.

"I suppose I could say something frivolous right about now, but I wouldn't want to get my face slapped. Or lose my job either, for that matter," he said, blushing slightly as he looked away. "The truth is, however, I knew you would not be in your bed. You have a very nasty habit of falling asleep down here—and always with your history books, too, I might add. You've been reading about those silly Americans again, I see."

"Oh, yes," she said, glancing over at the book. She was glad he couldn't tell what part she'd been looking at—a study on the minds of serial killers. She'd found it a bit more fascinating than she ought to have done, and somewhat more educational than she had expected.

"You sure do like history a lot, Hermione," he mentioned. "I'd have to say you are one of my very best students."

"You make the class very interesting," she told him softly, and felt her cheeks flush.

"Well, I'd better get back to my wing where I belong," he said circumspectly as he stood to go. "I wouldn't want to get your house any demerits because you entertained a guest after hours." His playful chuckle belied these words, and Hermione shook her head at him.

"You always know how to make me smile," she told him. "Good night, professor. I'll see you tomorrow in class."

"Yes, of course," he said, and his face fell slightly. She could tell he'd had a heavy thought, but she could not begin to guess what it was about. She sighed softly as the door closed behind him, and wondered not for the first time what Headmaster Snape would say if he knew about their rather unorthodox relationship. It was almost more of a friendship than a student, teacher sort of thing. And that was just the way Hermione liked it.

She woke the next morning with a smile on her lips. She'd been dreaming again. She'd dreamt that she and Professor Gaunt had married, and had three children together. Two boys and a girl. She often wondered why she kept dreaming about them, and their life together in a grand old house somewhere in the countryside. She should not be having dreams about her Professor, she knew, but they were only dreams after all. What could be the harm in dreams?

She even remembered the children's names, for in every dream they never changed. First was her daughter Melody, and then little Tom, and finally her youngest son, Dean. She could remember every detail of their little faces, the sounds of their voices, and especially the way Thomas Gaunt watched them together with proud, happy eyes.

"Hermione, aren't you ever going to get out of bed?" Ginny demanded as she shook her arm. "Harry and Ron have been waiting forever for you so they can surprise you for your birthday."

"You're not supposed to tell me there's a surprise," Hermione reminded her with a smile.

Ginny frowned, "Oh yeah, I forgot."

Hermione got dressed and went down to see what all the fuss was about. With her she took the big history book and her sac full of other books she would need for the morning class with Professor Snape, the headmaster's wife.

"Good morning, everyone," she said cheerfully.

"Good morning, Hermione," a room full of people greeted her. She saw several Weasleys, and of course her friend Harry, and a few others as well. Even Professor Gaunt had turned up. It was difficult for her to look at anyone else whenever he was in the room, but she managed to tear her eyes away long enough to see that they'd made her a cake. "Oh, thanks you guys, that's so nice of you."

"Make a wish, Hermione," Harry suggested.

As she bent to blow out the candles, he swiped her history book from her hand and laughed.

"Severus Harold Snape, you give that back right now!" Hermione protested hotly. He would have escaped completely except that Professor Gaunt managed to rescue her book before he could.

"Son, stop teasing the birthday girl," Professor Snape admonished him. A lock of her pretty red hair fell into her face and she pulled it back and neatly tucked it in. "Well, I imagine it's time for us all to get to our morning classes. Mind you don't make a mess with that cake on the way out, everyone. We wouldn't want to make Minerva get upset."

"Why should I be upset by that, Lily, when whoever makes the mess will be the one to clean it up?" said Professor McGonagall briskly.

"Hermione? What the heck is the matter with your time turner? It's going bonkers," Ron commented as he looked over at her. The thing suddenly made a whining noise, and let out a horrid green light. Hermione flew across the room and landed in a heap on the floor.

"I'll get her!" Professor Gaunt shouted as he ran to her side. He picked her up and carried her out of the room, straight to the hospital wing, and while no one else was looking he clipped off a piece of her hair as he laid her on the bed.

Hermione stirred and looked up at him. "What happened?"

"It's all right, my dear, you just got a bump on your pretty little head, nothing to worry about," he told her as he gave the undoubtedly sore spot a little rub. "Get some rest. I'm certain that Professor Lily will excuse you from her class after such a nasty fall."

"All right," she agreed.

As Professor Gaunt left the room, he came across Headmaster Snape out in the hall.

"Did you get it?" Snape asked him.

"Of course I did," said Tom with a shake of his head. "You always ask the stupidest questions. You've got the time turner, right?"

"I've got it, and the potion for the replication spell is ready, too." Snape said. "I will be back within the week. Pray that we don't alter time much further than we already have or this mess is really going to get out of hand."

"I don't hear you complaining," Tom pointed out. "You got Lily in the bargain, and very soon I'll get my girl, too. Just make sure she's forgotten who I am."

"You know the deal. You won't get any of the past Hermione's or Voldemort's memories until after he is dead," Snape reminded him. "My son is up to the task. It won't be long before this war ends, and you can have your happily ever after."

Tom smiled. "I've been waiting a long time for it," he replied. "And Hermione is well worth the wait."


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Losing the girl was never part of the deal, Severus!" Lord Voldemort hissed angrily as Snape stood before him with his head bowed low. He was feeling decidedly better about the meeting this second time around, since he knew precisely where the girl was lost this time, but of course Voldemort didn't know that.

"It is very strange, my Lord," he repeated his previous words. "One moment she was completely safe beside me, and the next she was just not there. It is perhaps fortunate that she was almost fully regenerated before her disappearance."

"How is that fortunate, when she is now lost and alone in some strange place and time with no one to help her?" Voldemort wanted to know as he ran a hand through his thick, dark hair and closed his eyes to block out the thought. "But, that is not my only concern just now. I have suddenly come to the realization that I am not the only me in this timeframe."

"What do you mean, my Lord?" asked Severus as if he had no clue.

"I have felt him—my younger self," said Voldemort as he began to pace. "I had thought he died in the blast when the Vanishing cabinet went crazy and Borgin had to replicate me, but now I fear he is very much alive, and I must find him if I can. He may prove very useful to my future plans."

"My Lord, you promised me the time turner, so I can be with Lily," Severus began, and cowered when Voldemort glared at him.

"And you promised me the girl, Severus," he growled. "I am nothing without her. Hermione is the only thing that kept me going all these years. How can I possibly reward you for losing her? You're lucky you are not already dead."

"But I can help you find her, my Lord," Severus informed him. "After all, I'm the one who remembers approximately where I lost her."

"She must be fully aware by now," Voldemort said as he ran a hand through his hair again. "We must find her as quickly as possible, before she ends up dying again—or worse."

"What could be worse than that?"

"I have no idea, but one can never leave out the possibility," he told him. "We must go to Vietnam now, however. I sense it is where I need to be."

"And, ironically enough, the same direction I would have led you myself."

#

Severus decided it was best to let Voldemort lead the way again. He had found Tom and Hermione with relative ease the last time, so he held no worries about his doing so again. Besides, the less he tampered with the events of this timeline, the more likely it would be his current future would remain as it was. He was beginning to find time travel a maddening thing, and after this trip he had no intentions of doing it again.

"He is close," Voldemort said as the two of them stepped off the plane, followed by about twenty Death Eaters he'd brought along for the ride. "I believe he is here, in Hanoi."

"You do know who else is here right now, do you not?" Severus mentioned.

"Of course I do," Voldemort grumbled. "But that group of Muggle time runners has never been successful in their attempts to thwart me, nor will they ever be. If they succeeded, I never would have met Hermione, and for that matter you never would have come back in time to ask me to spare Lily and prevent my own temporary demise."

Severus added, "You must remember, my Lord, that all must go as we have discussed—without a war, Hermione will have no reason to come back in time. In this reality at least, you would never get to be with her, and your children would not exist."

"Wait! Who is that coming out of that hotel?" Voldemort said on a gasp as he spotted the couple and man heading for a car. "It's them. Together! Bloody hell, he had better not have touched her, or I'll—"

"But he is you, my Lord," Severus pointed out. "What difference would it make?"

"Because he's not me, me, he's just a younger me and that's my wife."

"Not yet, she isn't," Severus reminded him.

"Damn!"

"Calm yourself, my Lord," Snape chided him. "At least she is not all alone and frightened as you thought she might be. At least she is with a man you know has kept her safe."

"We must catch up to that car, Severus," Voldemort insisted. "I will reclaim what is mine."

#

"Be reasonable, Tom," Severus insisted. "It is the only way the future will remain as it is now, and the only true way we can be certain hermione will come back in time in the first place. You must allow things to proceed as Voldemort says."

"But I saw her first," he said, glaring over at Voldemort with a deep frown.

"I know how it feels, believe me," Voldemort said. "But you have not known her as I have, it will be much easier for you to go now, before you are as hopelessly in love with her as I have become. You must understand, Tom, that I have been her husband for ten years, and I brought her back here for me, not for some younger, more sentimental version of myself. Go with Severus, and leave Hermione to me. In the end, we shall both gain what we want."

"And you truly want to die just to rejoin me?" he asked with a shake of his head.

"I'll be seventy years old by then," he reminded him. If you go with this Severus into his past, and meet his younger self about ten years from now, you'll only be about thirty-five when the war ends. Besides, if his plans work out as he has told us they should, he will be the Headmaster at Hogwarts and he will hire you, as he has said. You will be with Hermione almost three years by the time the war happens. As long as you do not tell her anything about the time travels until after my death, everything will proceed as it should and she will become Professor Gaunt's wife, free and clear, and we'll be able to put this whole fiasco behind us."

"And hopefully not try to overthrow the Ministry yet another time?" Tom clarified.

"If you follow Hermione's advice, and teach the children what we want them to learn, you could easily take over the Ministry in quite another way," Voldemort pointed out. "If everyone believes in you, if they all like you and trust you, then your path to power will be much smoother."

"I suppose you are right," Tom agreed. "But none of us knows if I would become the Minister of Magic sometime after the war or not. You could be wrong."

"But I will do my best to be right, of that you can be sure."

"Of that I have no doubt," Tom said with an indulgent smile. "Very well, I will do as you say. I have never once said I have given up my thirst for power, just my bloodlust for Muggles. But, there's just one more question I have. Who the devil is this Ted Bundy bloke that has Hermione so hot under the collar?"

"Ah, my little bit of propaganda did survive," Voldemort chuckled. "It's just a serial killer from the seventies over in America. I thought I'd mess with Hermione just a bit, since she's so fond of some bloody history book of hers she often said she wished she still had."

Snape rolled his eyes. "I'll say she's fond of it. Young Tom here is the one who gave it to her, but I had to remove her memories of Tom both times she goes back before the final time after the war. Good thing these are all just copies of the poor girl, or she'd end up completely batty by the time she remembers all of this."

"And you're certain it won't drive her batty when she does?" Tom clarified. "I'd hate to think we got the whole mess worked out only to end up with Hermione going daft on us after all is said and done."

"To tell you the truth, I came back here right after she went back the first time, and it was me who retrieved this Hermione from the Tom of her sixteenth birthday as well, so I still have to go back to my own place and time to see how it all worked out. If my place is even still there. I can only hope you two don't mess the whole thing up between now and then."

"Well, you gents had best be off," Voldemort said. "I don't want Hermione to wake up alone."

"Good luck with that, my Lord," Snape said. "She's not likely to go down easily."

"So I've noticed," he agreed with a chuckle. "But I'm certain I will prevail."


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"So it's 1980, and you are Thomas Gaunt, a child the Dark Lord never knew he had, who has been raised since early childhood in a boarding school in the south of France. You have decided to come to London and finish your last year of study at Hogwarts, and you are only seventeen," Snape said. "You still look young enough to pull it off. Just be sure you don't give me my note to myself until after Voldemort tells me about all of this, I'm not very likely to believe you otherwise."

"So, one last thing," Tom said as Snape turned to go. "What about James Potter?"

"You will have to deal with him in secret," Snape said. "If anyone were to figure out what happens to him, it would ruin all."

"Do you think a hundred years into the future is a bit excessive?" Tom asked with a half smile. "We could just send him twenty-five—"

"If I could send him a thousand it would be better for me," Snape growled. "Lily must never know the truth. Use this third time turner I acquired, and make sure he can't come back here when you are done."

"All right, I'll be sure he doesn't see my face or hear my name. Here is the time turner that came back with the Hermione we just left," said Tom. "It's a good thing you deactivated it before she came back or she might have jumped forward again and found herself waiting for her."

"Yes, that would have been quite an upset to the plan to send back the seventeen year old, and also send back the seventeen and a half year old beyond that," said Snape. "Believe me when I tell you what a confusing mess I made just because I wanted Lily for myself and learned that Voldemort knew the replication spell that Borgin had used on him. If it hadn't been for the old man's comment about regrowing the Dark Lord once before, I never would have known it could be done."

"Very well, give me the time turner from the Hermione of the '60's, and I'll keep ahold of it till she gets it back from me. What year did I give it back again?" asked Tom.

"You must remember these things on your own, Tom," he growled. "I won't be here to remind you. You give it to her at the end of her second year, and tell her it may come in handy once she gets back in the fall. That way she'll get to play with it over the summer, and no doubt think all about those big blue eyes of yours while she does."

Tom chuckled. "I'll make sure she does."

"Just as long as you keep it clean till we get this straightened out, feel free to get her thinking about you all you want. I know how much you love teasing her. If you weren't busy messing with somebody's mind every now and then, I think you're the one who would go batty."

"You're probably right," he agreed. "Don't be surprised if I start out with your teenaged self."

"I already know you will," Snape answered, tapping his forehead with his finger. "Now stick to the plan. No deviations, right?"

"Right."

"And remember, I have deactivated the '60's time turner until it's time to give it to her—just in case," he added. "So don't go asking me before that, I told myself not to do it."

"How do you know I will give you the note, then?" he asked with a smug smile.

"You will," Snape answered. "You know how much it's going to mess with my mind."

"I hate it when someone knows my weaknesses," Tom grumbled, and he watched as Snape disappeared from view.

#

"What the devil? Who are you?" said James Potter as he looked at the cloaked figure who had suddenly Apparated about five feet ahead of him as he jogged back towards Hogwarts castle after taking a swim under a moonlit sky. "No one is supposed to be out here at this time of night, you know."

"And yet here you are," said an unfamiliar voice.

"What do you want with me? I'll take my wand to you proper if you don't leave me be."

The shadowy apparition laughed as he surged forward and grabbed James by the arm. He wrapped a strange object around his hand and suddenly the whole world sped up and went by, leaving his head spinning with confusion. When it stopped he looked coldly at his attacker.

"I've brought you into the future, Potter," the man said. "You won't be coming back, and if you try you will not find what you expect. Best if you start a new life here."

"But Lily—"

"Will be well taken care of, and much happier," he said. "If you return to her, both of you will be killed. I've done you a great favor."

With that, the man was gone, leaving James with no idea what to do or where to go. But in the distance he spotted the familiar spires of Hogwarts school. Apparently it still existed, wherever he was. He'd go there looking for help.

#

"Who are you?" asked young Severus Snape of the new guy as he stepped confidently into the hall the following day. He was quite suspicious of the young man who looked so very much like the Dark Lord, a man he had received his Dark Mark from over a year ago now.

"Thomas Gaunt," he said as he extended a hand in greeting.

"If I didn't know better, I would swear I was looking at Lord Voldemort himself," Severus said suspiciously.

"I've been told many times the resemblance is uncanny," Tom remarked. "I've also been told by my mother that he was the bloke what made me. I suppose it must be true, if I look so much like him."

"The Dark Lord is your father?" Snape asked dubiously. "Voldemort has only three children that I know of, and I should know. He tells me everything."

"Tell your Lord that Thomas Gaunt has arrived at Hogwarts, and see what he tells you then," Tom suggested with a mysterious smile. "You should find it quite educational."

"You have his mannerisms, too, did you know that?" Snape added. "He often smiles at me in just that way. It truly is uncanny. So, has Dumbledore met you yet, Thomas Gaunt?"

"Yes, I met him this morning," Tom chuckled. "He was quite surprised, to say the least. Thought the Dark Lord had suddenly taken a youth serum and showed up on his doorstep. Seems this Voldemort character is a pretty well known bloke."

"You could say that," Severus agreed distractedly.

"What are you on about, then?" Tom asked as the man looked cautiously around a corner.

" I haven't seen that insufferable twit Potter all morning. It's starting to make me nervous," he explained. "Usually he's got my pants around my ankles by this time of day."

"What, is he a lover of yours or something?" Tom asked, knowing full well just what reaction that question would evoke.

"I love only one person in this world, Gaunt, and it happens to be the same person he does," Snape sneered. "Lily is a mudblood, true, but I find I am unable to get her out of my mind. Strange that I serve a half-blood Lord who has a Muggle wife, and yet I am supposed to dislike all Muggles. Does that mean I should dislike my Muggle parent, as well? Pity."

"You're a really fun guy, aren't you Severus?"

"I don't recall telling you my name," he said suspiciously.

"I heard someone say it, and so I sought you out," Tom explained. "We're apparently meant to be friends, you and I. But before I say more, you should speak to your Lord."

"Yes, I think I will," he agreed.


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Lily? Are you talking to me again yet?" asked Severus as he joined his boyhood friend up the tree where he knew he would find her.

"Should I be?' she asked sulkily as she turned away from him.

"Come, now, you know I didn't mean it when I called you a mudblood," he pleaded. "I was just completely pissed off at your so-called boyfriend."

"Well, that's just the thing," she said. "James has been missing all day. I'm quite worried that something awful has happened to him."

"Nothing that he did not bring on himself, I trust," Severus said uncharitably.

"Severus, this is serious," she insisted. "Even if you don't like him, he still deserves a little compassion. How would you feel if nobody came looking if you went missing?"

"I suppose you're right," he agreed in a long-suffering tone. "But where would he have gone off to in the first place? I know I haven't any idea."

"Neither do I," she admitted. "He's always been a bit of a private sort of person, even with me. This isn't the first time he's gone off on his own—but he's never been gone so long before."

"Would it make you feel better if I helped you look for him?"

"You would do that, after everything that's happened this year?" she asked softly, looking up into his eyes. For a moment it was almost like it used to be between them, and she stopped herself short from leaning in to kiss his cheek as she wanted to do. She was certain James would not approve if she did, not even in a circumstance like this one.

#

"I am sorry, Mr. Potter, but my decision must stand," insisted Headmaster Perriwether as he stepped away from the distraught young man. "Time travel has been forbidden almost since before I was born. There is nothing I can do."

"But who knows what will happen with me stuck here in the future," James complained as he paced back and forth in front of the man's desk.

"Who knows what would happen if you should return?" the man pointed out. "You could very well upset the entire present if we sent you back—I might never even be born at all. I hardly think that is something I'd willingly take a risk on. No, as you say you are a seventh year, you may as well be a seventh year here. It will give you time to sort out what you're going to do with the rest of your life."

"The rest of my life," he groaned as he rubbed at his temples. "This is so insane it has got to be a dream. I'm sure I'll wake up any moment and find myself back in my bed in a cold sweat or something."

"Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's very real, young man," Perriwether commented. "I looked you up in the old rosters, and you never returned to school in 1980. That can only mean one thing. You must have remained here, or if not, you never managed to return to school. And, as your name does not crop up elsewhere in history, I fear we must leave well enough alone, whether you like it or not."

"Very well, I will do so for now," he grumbled. "But, can you at least tell me what ever becomes of Lily Evans?"

"Ah, yes, I remember that name,"he said. "If she had not given birth to her son Harry, I fear the world would now be a far darker place. Are you perhaps familiar with the tale of the evil Lord Voldemort, the dark wizard who tried to take over the Ministry back in the '90's?"

"I have heard the name, yes," James said.

"Lily's son defeated him in the end," he explained. "We are all in her debt, and of course in his."

"And who was the father or this paragon who saved the world?" James just had to ask.

"Why, Severus Snape, of course," said the man. "He too was a great man, well loved by the people and Headmaster of Hogwarts for a great many years. There was a time when the people wanted him as Minister of Magic, but he wanted nothing to do with the job. As I understand, he passed over the job and nominated his friend Gaunt instead. Now there was a man of great power. Not everyone agreed with everything he did during his years in the office, but there's no man alive today that would argue that he got results."

"Gaunt, you say?" James said curiously. "Never heard of him."

"There are those who say he was a child of the Dark Lord himself," Perriwether said. "Others believed it to be nothing but a rumor spread by those who would see him deposed. It's only about twenty years ago now that he died. His son, Arthur, is still alive today, though one seldom hears much about him in the news of late. Bit of a recluse, that one."

"I am very tired, sir,"James told him. "Is it possible you could allow me to go to Gryffindor House and get assigned to a bed? I could really use a rest."

"Yes, yes, of course, forgive me for rambling on when you've had such a trying day," the man agreed. "Off you go, then, and give Rowena Lothcart my best."

"Is that the Head Mistress now?" he asked tiredly. At the man's nod, he said, "I shall."

#

"My Lord, have you ever heard of a man named Thomas Gaunt?" Severus asked Voldemort as he bowed briefly before him and tossed himself into a nearby chair.

"It's a good thing we're alone, Severus, you should act a little more like a devoted servant and a little less like a lump on my couch."

"I would, you know, if I believed for one moment that you would do me any harm," Severus told him with an amused smirk on his face.

"I do not want that name mentioned in front of my wife, Severus," Voldemort instructed him as he flopped into a seat as well. He snapped at the servant who entered the room and she grabbed the decanter of bourbon and made each man a glass on the rocks, which she handed them before she left. "I've made you as jaded as me, my young friend. Don't drink so fast, I need you to be sober when I tell you what you must know."

"Then you do know him?" Severus asked shrewdly. "Is he truly your son, then?"

"Is that what he told you?" Voldemort asked, amused. "Clever of him. No, the lad is none other than myself, as I believe you may have guessed already. Many years ago I disappeared and Borgin thought I was dead, so he used a spell to replicate me from a hair I'd left in his store. He feared, and rightly so, that if my followers had learned of my demise that he might be blamed. Several years later I had asked him for this spell, and now it is known only to me since his death. However, apparently I was not dead. Thomas Gaunt is the me who was catapulted into the future. You must befriend him. Much depends on his successful integration into this timeframe."

Severus was staring at his Lord as if he had gone mad. But then a light dawned in his eyes. "Replication, you say? How interesting. And I trust you have made use of this spell for something?"

"My wife, for one thing," he said with a smile. "You must talk to Tom Gaunt, Severus. He will enlighten you on a great many things."

"I believe he said as much, my Lord," Severus answered, and downed his drink after all.


	16. Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Severus held Lily close, letting her cry on his shoulder as she would. It had been over a week now, with still no word from James Potter. She had come to believe that something dreadful must have befallen him, but in the end she began to spend more and more time with her old friend as a result. He could hardly complain at such a turn of events.

After he'd visit with Voldemort the other day, he had come back to Tom and received the note he had written to himself. It was the most crazy, convoluted bit of nonsense he'd ever seen, but he had done as his future self had instructed and destroyed it once he had digested the entirety of its contents. He rather liked the idea that he would become Headmaster of Hogwarts, and hire Thomas Gaunt as his employee. It was an interesting twist, if one thought about it.

He had told Tom that he had other matters to attend to, but that he would leave him to get acquainted with the school in its present state and make a few other friend and the two of them could discuss it in a few days time.

Tom had offered to help look for James as well when Severus had brought up the dilemma in front of Lily, and her half-smile and fallen from her face.

"I'm sorry, but Severus has told me about your friend," he said. "I didn't mean to upset you. I'll just go and find myself something to do, and leave you two alone," he had offered, and then casually strolled away toward the Astronomy tower.

"I'm sorry to be such a watering pot," Lily said then, and Severus had taken her into his arms. Now he rubbed her back as she continued to sob, and whispered into her hair, "It'll be all right, Lily. You'll see, it'll be all right." He hardly knew how he dared, but suddenly found his lips buried in her hair, and he breathed in the scent of her with a pang of longing.

Lily looked up into his eyes, and before she even knew what she was doing her lips met his hungrily. Surprised, Snape kissed her back for all he was worth, and before she could have a chance to rethink what she had started, he took it to the next level, picking her up in his arms and carrying her over to the nearest tree. The two lay under the bower of branches and made love, uncaring if someone should find them there or not.

#

"Retaking these damned seventh year tests was not on my agenda when I graduated from Hogwarts last time," Tom complained as he and Severus sat together in the bedroom they shared along with one other Slytherin—Lucius Malfoy—who was not currently in the room.

"Well, what did you expect, that you would be excused from them because you'd already done them before?" Severus sneered as he laid his quill down. "Remember, you are not supposed to be you anymore, my Lord, so you can't go about complaining when you have to do something again that Thomas Gaunt has supposedly not yet done."

"I know it," he grumbled. "It's just that I can't stop thinking about Hermione, about how long I will have to wait to have her for my own. But at least you appear to have Lily well in hand, at any rate."

"How do you know that?" asked Severus as he looked up from his book with a raised brow.

"Saw the two of you under the tree," he admitted with a lascivious smile. "Didn't know you could be quite so romantic, Snapy-poo. You looked like you could use a medal after that successful performance."

"You don't mean to say you watched the whole thing?" Severus asked, his cheeks reddening at the thought.

"Hell, I've got to have some fun, don't I?" Tom asked with a chuckle. "After all, just because I'm not me doesn't mean I'm not naughty."

"You sound just like Voldemort did the other day, you know," Severus said as he gave him a speculative look. "He said he's made me just as jaded as he is. I swear, with two of you blokes around, how could I be anything else but jaded? It's a bloody conspiracy, if you ask me."

"You looked as though you rather enjoyed it," Tom mentioned as he went over to his bed and laid down with his hands under his head. "Admittedly, Hermione is not going to be the first girl I ever had, once she is finally mine, but I do intend to behave myself if I'm able."

"For practically twenty years, you're going to behave yourself?" Snape scoffed. "You, the Dark Lord, the man who put the word 'self' into selfish? That should prove interesting."

"Ah, but Severus, you have never seen the prize," Tom said.

"Of course I have," he disagreed. "Voldemort's wife is a lovely woman. I can imagine she was just as beautiful in her younger years."

"I had forgotten about her being alive in this timeframe," Tom grumbled as he punched his pillow a few times. He had an uncomfortable desire to go to her, to see her just once and explain why he had left. But the trouble was, he wasn't sure what he would say exactly if he did. For him it had been only a couple weeks, but for her it had been years. He had no idea of the reception he might receive, let alone what Lord Voldemort would do if he should make the attempt.

"What are you thinking about over there, Mr. Gaunt?" Snape asked him as he turned and saw the look on his companion's face. "You remember, we must stick to the plan at all costs. Lady Mione is not a part of the plan, and don't you forget it."

Tom sighed deeply, and turned onto his side to look at his friend. "What's she like now, Severus? Has she become as dark and sinister as her husband?"

"She is as determined a woman as one would ever want to know," Severus said. "She is smart as a whip—but the trouble is, she knows it. She is perhaps one of the most insufferable know-it-alls I've ever had the displeasure of putting up with. But her husband seems well pleased with her, so it is not my place to complain."

"You sound as though you do not like her much," Tom said with a frown.

"Oh, no, she's well enough," Severus quickly corrected him. "I suppose it is just that she and I tend to get on each other's nerves, that's all. She is a very outspoken woman, not like my Lily, who is more quiet and contemplative. But that is as it should be—different men find different things appealing."

"I wonder what she'd say if she knew I was here," Tom said with a chuckle.

"Well, we're not about to find out, so best you stop thinking on it," Severus said. "You'd do well to concentrate on your studies instead, if you want to be a teacher at this school one day."

"I aced that subject anyway," Tom said with casual disinterest. "But, you know what would be sort of fun? Having a look in the old Chamber of Secrets again. It's not as if anyone would know."

"Boredom in the hands of a man such as yourself is not a good thing," Severus observed. "Maybe we should find you a hobby. I'll bet you could be really good in the drama club."

Tom laughed delightedly at the thought. "You know, I never thought of it before, but all things considered, I think you're right. I shall try out for it tomorrow, and be the best actor in the whole damned group."

"I just bet you will," Severus said on a smirk, and turned back to his book as Tom rolled onto his back again, lost in thought. He could not know just how prophetic those words would prove to be.


	17. Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Pansy Sherring, Mr. Potter," said a fellow seventh year student as she extended a hand in his direction. James grasped the hand almost absent-mindedly as he stared across the room at a young woman who looked so much like Lily it was uncanny.

"Yes, of course," he said with barely a glance at the girl. "Who is that young woman?"

"Oh, her?" Pansy scoffed. "That's just Rosetta Snape. She thinks she is all that just because her grandfather is the man who defeated the evil Lord Voldemort all those years ago. You don't want to talk to her, she'll just monopolize the whole conversation with fashion tips or some such rubbish. You look like a man who would rather talk to a woman with better sense than that."

"She reminds me of someone I know—well, used to know, I suppose," he explained as he walked away, straight toward the beautiful red-head he had in his sights.

"Hello," Rosetta said as he approached. "You must be the time traveler."

"I am," he admitted, though he was surprised she had heard. Perriwether and he had thought it should not be bandied about as common knowledge, in case it should cause trouble somehow. They'd come up with the tale that he had simply transferred there from a European school so the other students would not treat him any differently. He cast her a look that clearly said he didn't know what to make of her question.

"I guess I'm not supposed to know," she admitted softly as she blushed up at him. "My grandfather told me in secret that one day you might be here, and now here you are. I have no idea why he felt I needed to know, but her certainly made sure I did. He told me the whole story, how if you had remained in the past you would have been killed, and putting you into the future had saved your life"

"You look much like his mother, I suppose that may have been why he mentioned it," James said. "I knew the woman well. I'm certain that he would have known that, if I know Lily as I think I do."

"Did you—care for her?" she asked softly as she watched the emotions play about his face.

"Yes, I did," he said. "Meant to make her my wife one day, to tell the truth."

"It must be very difficult for you to have to look at me, then," she apologized. "I can imagine how this all must feel, suddenly finding yourself in another place and time while your heart is still in the past."

"Perhaps," James began, but then stopped himself from saying what had just come to mind.

"Yes?"

"Perhaps you can help me to feel better about it all," he said, then blushed hotly for having said it. "I mean, since you are a lot like she was. It might be helpful in a way."

Rosetta laughed at this, thinking how ironic it would be if she should take the place of her great grandmother in her former lover's affections.

"What is it?" James asked. "I'm moving too fast, aren't I? I suppose it would be a bit improper if you think on it, me and you getting together."

"Not improper, really," she said with a smile. "Just—unusual, I suppose."

"Have you ever thought that everything happens for a reason?" James wanted to know. "Like maybe I ended up here just so I'd meet you."

"That sounds totally weird," she said. "But you know, I kind of like it. Maybe we should have dinner together this evening and give the matter some thought."

"Done," he agreed with a heady smile. "Done, done, and done."

#

Hermione raised a hand when Professor Gaunt inquired of the class which year the Muggle's World War I had ended. She was not the one he called on, and her cheeks flamed with wounded pride as Harry answered the question instead.

"That war ended in 1947, sir," he said. Her cheeks flushed hotly at the desire to tell him he was incorrect, and give the right answer herself.

"You look like a girl with something to say," Gaunt said to her as he turned away from young Snape. "Would you like to give the right answer, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, I would," she answered as she straightened her tie. "The year was 1945, sir."

"That is correct, Miss Granger' he said. "Two points for Gryffindor House."

"Teacher's pet," Ron muttered under his breath, but made sure that she could hear.

"What is that, Mr. Weasley?" asked Professor Gaunt with a raised brow.

"Nothing, sir," Ron said innocently.

"I thought not," he said as he paced across the floor, back to the display of fighter jets he'd floated in the air before the class. "This is what their planes looked like back then," he told them, and then pointed to one in particular. "And this is the plane they used to drop the first nuclear bomb on Japan. As you know, that bomb had a profound impact on the Wizarding World as well, wreaking havoc on the magical field that separates our world from that of the Muggles. Spells went haywire for weeks afterwards, and much chaos abounded. But luckily, nowadays these bombs have no more effect on our fields since they have been improved to withstand such blasts."

"Good thing, that," Ron said with a sage nod.

"Yes, Mr. Weasley, it certainly is. But for now, class is dismissed. Don't forget to review all the chapters for your upcoming test tomorrow, and enjoy the rest of your day," said the Professor, his eyes straying over to Hermione as the words left his lips. He caught her gaze and gave her a brief but intense smile, and she returned it as she got to her feet and headed for the door.

"Enjoy your day, Miss Granger," he said after her, and she turned back to look at him.

"You too, Professor," she said, and then darted quickly away.

Tom turned on his heels and strode over to the window, where he knew she would soon reappear as she crossed the courtyard on the way to the Astronomy tower for her next class. He felt his heart thud in his chest as she glanced up at the window where she knew he would be, watching as he always did. It was a ritual between the two of them, and one which they both enjoyed very much.

"You watching Granger again?" asked Severus as he strode into the room without any sort of preamble.

"Yep," Tom answered, not looking away as she strode into view. Sure enough, their eyes met briefly before she headed for the tower, and then Tom turned back to the Headmaster inquisitively. "You lost?"

"It's almost the end of the school year," Severus mentioned. "Your other self will be starting the war within another few weeks. I just wondered how we wanted to play this thing out."

"I did have an idea," Tom said. We could steal a bit of her hair and make a replicant, and you could send that one back, and she would never even have to know about it. If she doesn't get the idea in her head to go back in time to begin with, that would probably be a good thing."

"I've had an owl from the Dark Lord," Severus said. "He's sent a copy of all his memories, and all of Lady Mione's, so you can give them to your little know-it-all at the appropriate time. He wanted to make sure you had them before the fun begins, so there can be no foul ups. Each of you will drink a potion, and your memories will be restored. Seems a simple enough task."

"I can hardly wait," Tom answered with a sigh. "All these years are finally come to an end."


	18. Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Tom Gaunt easily passed all his tests and graduated yet again. This time around, he had the private backing of an undisclosed person to help him go on to the Wizarding World equivalent of college, and this financial windfall also provided him with a house of his own. With the ability to care for himself taken care of, Tom was free to pursue a brief acting career while he finished his studies in history and Severus studied potions by his side.

By the time Hermione was born in 1979, Severus Snape managed to get a job at Hogwarts as an assistant professor to Professor Turnbridge, who was in charge of the collection and processing of plants and minerals for use in potions. Obtaining ingredients had always been one of his favorite pastimes, and some of those ingredients were useful to Lily in her pastime as well. She was now the school's biology teacher. She covered both magical and Muggle information in her class, which made her a little unpopular with the separatists who believed no Muggle blood should ever mix with magical, period.

Tom had no idea that Lady Mione had discovered his presence in this timeframe until he went backstage and found her there, waiting for him. He kept walking, but she followed him.

"What are you up to?" she wanted to know. "He won't tell me anything but that you are paving the way to a better future. What sort of rubbish is that?"

"Ten years looks good on you, babe," Tom said with feigned disinterest as he stepped into the dressing room with the star on it and sat down at his table.

"So, your brilliant plan is what? To take over the world of theater since he plans to take the rest of it?" Hermione wanted to know. "Brilliant plan, that."

"I don't think your husband would be well pleased to know you came here, my Lady," Tom mentioned as he turned in his chair to look up at her. "So, why are you here anyway?"

"Why am I here? Why am I here?" she scoffed. "Because I have a lot of questions and not a whole lot of answers, that's why."

"Pity—I thought you came to sample my wares," he teased her with a suggestive grin.

"I hadn't even thought of it," she said, surprised. "I'm with him now, you know that."

"But I am him," he pointed out.

"Oh! I should never have bothered," she complained. "I can see that you'll be no help at all."

"Depends on what you need help with," he said with a chuckle. "But I won't tell you the whole sordid story, if that's what you're looking for."

"Ah, but I know more of it than you think," she said cryptically. "I know that Severus Snape married Lily Evans, and that James Potter has disappeared off the face of the planet, and I know that Lily is about to give birth to her son. But what I don't understand is, why are you pursuing an acting career when all you have ever wanted was power. It doesn't make sense."

"Did you know that when you are on stage you can be anyone you like?" Tom asked. "It's quite fun to be Napoleon or King Richard or even King Arthur, and no one gets mad at you for it. Kind of like a power trip without the aftermath."

Hermione laughed now. "You can't be serious," she said. "So who were you today, Julius Caesar?"

"Yes, I was, actually," he said with a smile. "Et tu, Brute?"

"I never stabbed you in the back, Tom," she said. "You're the one who left me behind, for whatever your reasons. I'm just trying to understand what was so bloody important that you did."

"It occurred to Voldemort and myself that should I go farther into the future, nearer to the time of his death, that I would make a perfect vessel for his soul to depart into when the time comes."

"Oh, great, that's just great," Hermione complained. "He gives no thought to me in the middle of all this. I'm not slated to die in another fifteen years or so just because he is. I'll only just have made it to the age of 40."

"I'm sure he means for you to take care of your children and grandchildren then," Tom said. But he wasn't at all sure. Voldemort's promise had been to deliver his memories to Tom, and Hermione's memories for the girl. There was no mention made of what he expected to happen to his wife after that. He wouldn't kill her off as well, surely? Tom sincerely hoped not.

"So, what do you get out of all of this, then?" Hermione wanted to know.

"I get to be with you, just not the you that you are right now," he explained.

"But how would you get to be with me, if you have to send me into the past so that I can be with you there?" she asked. "Wait, is that right?"

"Hermione, I don't want to tell you," he said. "It's likely to really piss you off."

"You copied me, didn't you?" she asked. "I mean—well, in the future, you're going to send back a copy and keep the original. It sort of fits, in a way. I've noticed a few things about me that were different than I remembered. Nothing major, of course, except a very fond memory of a book but no recollection who gave it to me."

"I will give it to you, when you are fifteen," Tom said. "Mystery solved."

"Ok, so you send back a copy on my sixteenth birthday, another on my seventeeth birthday, and then what? How do I go back in the middle of the war and why do I do it?"

"Snape said he would deal with that when the time comes," Tom said. "I just know I get to keep the original, just like I myself am the original. We figure doing it that way should set the mess we made back in order, at least a little bit. Time travel can be a pretty messy business, Hermione."

A loud snap sounded behind her, and Voldemort stood looking at them with an angry look on his face. Tom turned back around in his chair so that his back was to the two of them.

"What are you doing here?" Voldemort asked his wife. "I've been looking everywhere. This is the last place I expected to find you."

"Just discussing history, my love," she told him with a nervous smile. "Mr. Gaunt here knows a lot about history, don't you, sir?"

"Give over, woman," Voldemort sneered. "Off to see the youngster, without so much as a made up excuse for your absence."

"There's the beauty of telling the truth," she pointed out. "That way you don't have to make up another lie to cover the other lie."

"You must come home now, wife of mine," he insisted. "You will only learn things here that you need not know."

"Not know?" she growled. "Not know what the devil you're up to, as usual? You are the most maddening man I know. Why should I not be let in on my future the same as you?"

"It's not your future, it's your past," he reminded her. "What Tom does now, he does to preserve all that we have, and all that we are. You wouldn't want to lose our time together, would you?"

"Never!" she said hotly as she grasped his hand in hers.

"Then let us go," said Voldemort, and he Apparated them away.

"Well, that was interesting," said Severus as he strode into view. "It looks like there's a job opening up at Hogwarts, Tom. I put in a good word for you as a drama instructor."

"How would a drama instructor become the school historian?" he wanted to know.

"Well, you know, maybe we should just live a while and see how that all happens," he pointed out. "Wouldn't that be something, actually not being sure of our future just like everyone else?"


	19. Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"I don't know, Tom, I have my doubts about hiring you," said Albus Dumbledore as he eyed the young man who had come looking for a job. "Granted, a drama instructor is a far cry from a Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, but how can I be certain you're not up to no good? I'm still not completely convinced you're who you say you are to begin with. The resemblance is just so damned remarkable."

"Professor Dumbledore, I spent a year in this school and nothing untoward happened. What makes you think it's going to happen now if it didn't then? What do I have to do to convince you that I am not my father—a father who has never even tried to contact me, I might add."

"No, he hasn't," Dumbledore conceded. "But still it makes me uncomfortable that your best friend is the same man that rumor places with the Dark Lord on a consistent basis. A man who, among other things, is suspected of being your father's most favorite Death Eater."

"A suspected Death Eater you had no trouble hiring on as a teacher at this school," Tom pointed out. "Look, it's simple, really. I don't have any family, and very few friends, and while I enjoy acting and I am very good at it, I just don't see it as a lifetime career. The truth is, and always has been, that I want to teach history, both Muggle and Magical. I used to think I'd be doing so in France, but when my mother died and I came here, I realized I love this old school more than anyplace else. This is where I want to spend my days, sir. I know old Hobbs is the history Professor now, but we all know he's not going to last much longer. Try me out in the drama class, and when you see that I'm no monster, you can replace him with me when that time comes."

"You know that I have been offered a job at the Ministry, do you not, Tom?" Dumbledore asked him. "If I take it, they plan to replace me with someone younger, someone who is sure to last a while, just as I have done. How can you be sure the next Headmaster will give you the job you want if I am gone?"

"It seems odd to think of Hogwarts without a Dumbledore," Tom reflected as he rubbed his chin. "I wonder who they will find who could do half as well running this place as you."

Of course Tom already knew who would be appointed. His older self had his fingers dug so deeply into the Ministry now that he may as well already be running the place, and he wanted Dumbledore out of Snape's way. What better way to remove him than to offer him a better prize? He did not tell the old man this, of course, since he had yet to even hire him on.

"I appreciate your sentiments, Tom, I really do," he said with a smile not unlike the one he'd given him years before, when he had tried to seduce him just before graduation, and Tom had rebuffed him in disgust. But Dumbledore did not try anything, he noticed with relief. "I believe I will do as you ask. You will take over the drama class effective immediately, and you will also begin to help old Hobbs as well. That ought to secure your place nicely."

"Thank you, sir," he said. "You won't regret it."

"No, Tom, I don't think I will," he agreed, putting a hand on his shoulder as he led him to the door. When it slid down his back half way to his butt as he passed through, Tom began to wonder if he really wanted the job as much as he thought he did.

He went looking for Snape, and found him in his quarters along with his wife, who smiled warmly at him as she left the two men alone.

"She's just told me she's pregnant," said Snape with a smile. "I've never been so happy."

"That's great for you, Severus," Tom said, still feeling uncomfortable.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked. "You look as though you'd seen a ghost."

Tom laughed. "Yes, a ghost from the past. I think old Dumbledore just tried to cop a feel."

"Senile old coot," Severus said with a chuckle. "He tried that with me once, and I threatened to tell everyone what a pervert he was. He insisted he was only trying to be friendly, nothing more, but I knew better. But I heard he's currently got a thing for one of the teachers. Nobody's sure which one, but I have my suspicions."

"You don't think that's why the blighter decided to hire me, do you?" Tom asked worriedly. "I'd hate to have to Avada Kedavra the Headmaster."

"Hmm, maybe that's how I get the job," Snape said with mock thoughtfulness.

"Very funny," Tom grumbled.

"I feel your pain, Tom, I really do, but I'm sure you won't have to worry about it over long."

"Old Snape never said what year he takes over," Tom pointed out. "That old perve could be after me for the next ten years before you take the job, for all I know."

"That would be a bit disconcerting, I'll admit," Snape agreed thoughtfully. "Perhaps you should see if your 'daddy' can speed things up a bit."

"You know I can't do that," he grumbled. "It might turn the whole mess around all over again, and who knows what would become of us then."

"I feel for you, gentlemen, I really do," said Lady Mione as she popped into view. "Only I still don't know what you're up to, and that troubles me. I just can't seem to shake the feeling there's something important I am supposed to do in the middle of all of this."

"Yes, there is," said Tom heatedly. "Go home and take care of our children."

"Our children?" she repeated with a laugh. "Yes, I suppose they are yours too, in a way, not that you have ever even met them. But then too, I did not expect to find you here at all. It was Severus and Lily I came to see."

"I've just been hired on at the school," Tom explained. "You may well find me a frequent visitor here from now on."

"Great," she grumbled. "How am I supposed to stay away from you if you and I tend to visit the same people? You do know that my husband and your best friend are also best friends, do you not?"

Tom laughed heartily as Severus rolled his eyes. "Well, perhaps you're not the only person I am inextricably tied to? Perhaps there is at least one other?"

"No offense, but I don't want to be tied to you, Tom," Snape told him. "That sounds rather—Dumbledoresque—if you ask me."

"Yes, it does," Voldemort agreed as he popped into the scene as well.

"Well then, I suppose I ought to take my leave, and let you two visit your friends," Tom said circumspectly as Lily came back in, beaming, and grasped Lady Mione's hands.

"Really?" Mione asked excitedly when she saw the look in the wordless woman's eyes.

"Yes," said Lily excitedly.

"Mind that any time travelers in this room refrain from revelation," said young Tom cryptically as he headed for the door. He and Severus had both been told of young Harry, though neither of them had met him, but Lady Mione and the as yet unborn baby had been the best of friends all through her years at Hogwarts, and he didn't want her to make things worse by telling Lily so.

"Time travelers?" she said innocently. "Haven't seen any around, have you?"

Tom closed the door and resolutely walked away. Just what the devil had he gotten himself into now?


	20. Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

Professor Thomas Gaunt entered his new classroom in the wake of one young boy, obviously a first year, who was pacing about as he waited for someone else to arrive. A stirring in his gut told him this was a boy he should recognize. He knew by his clothing he was a Slytherin, but he knew by his demeanor that he felt he was someone important. There was a proudness in his bearing, and intelligence shone in his eyes as the lad turned and looked him squarely in the eye.

"Well, young man, you look as if you have something to say," said Tom as he stepped forward and tousled the lad's hair. "What might that be?"

"You look just like my Dad," he commented as he straightened his mop of dark blond curls again with a rueful expression. "I'm really not supposed to tell anyone this, but Lord Voldemort is my father. Our mother has put me and my sister here with her maiden name, so we could get the proper education we deserve. Anyway,you look just like him."

"That's because I am him," said Tom with a chuckle. "But I'm not supposed to tell anyone that, either. Sounds like you and I are in the same boat, doesn't it?"

"You're not Lord Voldemort," said his son with some confidence. "I happen to know for a fact that he's in London right now terrorizing the populace."

"Well, that does sound like something he would do," Tom conceded. "But since I have told everyone here that I am his son, I suppose that would make me your brother," Tom conceded. "So, whether or not I am who I have said or not, it would be wise to say that we are brothers, and leave it at that."

"I have a younger brother, Dean," Tommy told him proudly. "He is only five, though."

"Yes, I know you do," Tom said with a smile. "But now you have a much older brother as well. One who will be there to look after you whenever your Dad cannot. What say you, shall I tell you a story before the others get here, young Tom Granger? Perhaps it will shed some light on the matter."

"Yes, please do, sir," he said. "I have heard you're a good actor, and this is drama class; let's see just how well you do."

"So it's to be a bit of improv, is it?" Tom said with a sinister smile. He grabbed up his cloak and wrapped it about his shoulders, then turned about to see if he could scare the boy.

Tommy just looked at him with a raised brow. Tom leaned further forward to look right into his eyes before he began, and did not speak again until he fidgeted under the intensity of the gaze.

"Once, the great and powerful Lord Voldemort was a young man, just graduated. He went into a secret shop of horrors to see what he might find there, and came upon the most amazing cabinet. It could take you wherever you might wish to go. Only when young Voldemort stepped inside, it took him to—the future!"

Tommy clapped his hands in excitement and giggled as he watched. Mollified, Tom began to pace about as he continued his tale.

"Well, he met himself in the future—and a really pretty girl as well, only apparently he hadn't gone quite as the far into— the future—as his other self had wantedhim to, and besides that the girl belonged to the older bloke, so he went even farther into—the future—bwaa ha ha!"

"Why did he do that?" Tommy wanted to know.

"Why, to get a girl of his own, of course," Tom explained. "A guy will do a lot of crazy things for the woman he loves."

"My Dad says that, too."

"I'll bet he does," Tom chuckled.

"So, did he get the girl, when he went to the future?"

"I don't know," he answered, just as sinister as before. "That part of—the future—hasn't happened yet."

"Yep, you're my Dad, all right," Tommy said in an off-hand manner as he hit his hand against Tom's elbow a couple of times.

"How do you know?" asked Tom on a more serious note.

"You're just as corny as he is."

"Hey, dirty pool, old boy, dirty pool," Tom said with a laugh. "But, I think it best if we remain brothers here in— the future. Don't you?"

"You're probably right," he agreed.

"And that, dear boy, sounds just like something my son would say."

"Someone is coming, Professor," he said, looking over his shoulder as a young woman who looked remarkably like a dark-haired Hermione came in. "Oh, it's just my know-it-all sister. She takes drama class, too."

"Don't tell her this is my future," Tom whispered in the boy's ear. "She doesn't need to know everything."

"Our secret," said the boy smugly, and the two clammed up as she approached.

"Professor Gaunt?" she greeted him with an extended hand. "Melody Granger, here. I've heard a great deal about you. I understand from some of my friends that you claim to be the son of Lord Voldemort?"

"Well, yes, so my mother tells me," he said with a charming grin.

"I've seen Lord Voldemort," she said. "You do favor the man, I think."

"And you favor your mother," he answered with a smile.

"You've met my—oh, I mean, how can you know I favor my mother, sir? You don't even know who my mother is."

Tommy chuckled as he went to find a seat near the front of the class.

"Quite right," he said, remembering he was not supposed to know. "I just doubt very much that your father could look so pretty."

"Thank you," she said with a slight blush. She didn't seem to be used to receiving compliments. She saw that he could tell, and added, "I'm a bit pushy for my own good, I suppose. Most people won't even talk to me."

"Perhaps drama class is a good place for you, then," he said. "I will teach you how to know everything and still get the admiration of all, simply by not trying so hard to get it."

"Do you really think that's my problem?" she asked hopefully. "My Dad told me so more than once, but my mother says he's just trying to control things as usual."

"Oh, really?" said Tom, trying not to let the evil look forming in his thoughts reach his face. Lady Mione seemed awfully controlling herself, to be saying something like that about her husband. He could imagine the two often sorted out their differences is a rather physical way—damn, how he wished he was his older self sometimes!

"So, tell me about yourself, young lady," he said to Melody. "I suppose you're at the top of your class?"

"Of course," she said, as if he should know it.

"Now see, that's exactly what I mean," he laughed. "If you want to be liked, you need to say that with a little more panache. Don't growl at me like a dog, flip it at me like a sprite. You know you're something special, everyone else should, too, so sing it to me, Melody. Put on a big, beautiful smile and embrace it like bright light and joyfulness. Be playful, and above all, cheerful, because nobody likes a sour puss."

"You've been on the stage a bit too long, I think," she told him as she turned to take a seat. Several other students filed in, and he moved to start the class.

"As many of you may know, I am Professor Gaunt, here to replace the last drama teacher who up and died last month in a tragic dueling accident. I know many of you are still highly emotional in regards to that mishap, so we will say no more about it. Today I'll be getting to know you all through a little thing I like to call improv. So, without further ado, let's all get up and do some acting."


	21. Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"Harry! Where are you going?" Hermione demanded of her friend as he turned toward the entrance to Hogwarts castle, which now lay in ruins around them.

"Somebody has to make this stop," he insisted as he removed her gripping hand from his arm. "If he wants me—if I'm the one he has insisted upon—then he shall have me. Somebody has to end this stupid war!"

"He's going to kill you," she said on a sob. Tom came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her back against him. Though he had never done such a thing before, she did nothing to try to get away or even look surprised by it. Instead, she leaned back into him and brought her hands up to hold onto his arms as tears streamed down her face.

"He has to go, Hermione," Tom told the top of her head. "It's going to be all right. Come on, let's go help the others. You're a good healer, and there are a lot of wounds to fix."

When he would have let her go, she stopped him with her hands and her plea. "Don't let go, Professor. Never let go."

Harry was gone, and still they lingered in that position. Tom's face leaned down into her hair so he could take in the scent of her, and he could feel the quickening of her heart that matched his own. He turned her around in his arms, and her face turned up to his, seeking the kiss she was sure to find there.

"Hermione!" he growled against her lips. "We shouldn't. Not yet."

"Why not yet?" she pleaded. "Do you have any idea how long I have waited for you to kiss me? Do you have any idea how much more I want?"

"I have a very good idea," he whispered, giving in to her and continuing the kisses. More and more kisses, unending. The whole castle could have fallen down around them and they would not care. Tom picked her up and brought her into his office, which seemed to be intact, straight back into his private rooms. They were on his bed before she even completely realized they'd gotten there.

"Tom!" she breathed into his mouth as his hands played her like a fine instrument. He seemed to be everywhere at once, touching and tasting. Hermione gave as good as she got, her breath coming in short gasps. "Oh, damn, I'm getting thirsty," she complained, still not wanting to stop.

Tom sat up and poured her some water from the pitcher on the nightstand. He considered giving her the memory potion, but he didn't want to do it quite yet. He wanted her to himself for a while first. But he held the cup to her lips, and drank some of it as well before he set the glass aside.

"Come here, my sweet, where were we," he whispered as he turned back to her again.

"Right here," she breathed into his mouth. This time his tongue snaked out to take possession, and she moaned at the gentle— and then not so gentle—torture. He practically tore off her clothes while she undid the buttons of his shirt beneath his robes, which she had hiked up out of her way.

"Here, let me help," he said, pulling the robes off and throwing them carelessly aside. "You're so beautiful, Hermione. You're so damned beautiful."

Hermione didn't say anything as she pulled his shirt free of his trousers and tossed it where the robes had gone. All she wanted was to taste his flesh. She bit into his chest, then traced its contours with her tongue until he couldn't take it anymore. He laid her down, hiked up her skirts, and discovered what she was wearing underneath.

"Oh, mercy, I'm glad I didn't know about this before now," he breathed as he spied the sweet, silky little Slytherin-green panties and the garters that held up her stockings. "Why are you wearing that?"

"It makes me feel naughty," she admitted with a grin.

"Who do you think of when you feel naughty, sweetheart?" he asked as his hands slid up her stockings in a search for wetness. He found it, all right, and explored his discovery thoroughly.

"Oh!" she gasped. "You mean you don't know, Tom? I've only ever wanted one man I can think of. Don't you know who he is?"

"Yes, I do," he said on a purr. "But tell me, Hermione. Tell me anyway." He leaned forward as if he would kiss her, but stopped a few inches away. He didn't move as she tried desperately to reach him, casting her a wicked grin. "Are you going to tell me?"

"Please! Please, I want you!" she said. "I want you so bad, Tom. Not just a finger—oh, not just two! Quit it, you know what I mean."

Tom cast her another wicked grin, and kissed her cheek, then down her neck and between her bared breasts. He tasted one, and then the other, as his fingers still worked their magic down below. Hermione was wild in her need, her hands clawing desperately at his shoulders, but then he kissed lower, his mouth taking over what his fingers had been up to, and she was completely lost.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she gasped as he continued his onslaught. But he didn't want her to finish without him, so he stopped, and exhaled slow, hot breaths on her instead to cool her down a bit. "Tom, please, I need—I need—"

"Tell me, honey, tell me," he said as he sat up and undid his pants in plain view of her avid eyes. He pulled them off, thrilling to the widening of those eyes when his cock sprang free.

She reached up to touch it with a look of wonder, and jumped away when it was a sensation not exactly like what she thought it would be. He laughed, and brought her hand up to him again, showing her what to do. She was rather good at following instructions, he noticed with extreme satisfaction.

Hermione didn't stop there, she sat up in the bed and tossed him down onto it, then proceeded to kiss her way down to his eager member in much the same manner he'd just kissed down her. Tom laughed at her as she reached her destination, and looked up at him before she took a taste. "Go on, then, my brave beauty. You should always finish what you start."

When she took him into her mouth, Tom very nearly shouted "Oh!" himself, but he managed to suck it in and bite his lip instead. Not liking this, Hermione determined that before she was done with him, she would get that "Oh!" and then some. She set to her task with determination, but after a while he stopped her.

"I'm getting too close, love," he said. "I want us to finish together. Will you let me be inside you?"

"Yes, Tom," she breathed, and he laid her back on the bed, kissing her all the way. He was above her now, and she saw his eyes dart down to see what he was doing. When he was in the right spot, he pushed a bit, and met the resistance he knew would be there. It took a while to get in, and he watched as Hermione bit her lip in anticipation, and eventually dis comfort.

"Ok, I think I can do it, now," he whispered, and thrust forward with a bit more force. Hermione gasped with pain and pleasure combined, and her nails bit into the flesh on his arms above his hands, which were holding her hips in place. She started to moan as he moved experimentally and his body came forward as he moved his hands to either side of her breast, resting them on the mattress beneath her. "Yes, Hermione, there it is. Do you like that?"

"Yes!" she barely managed to get out past her shaky breaths. Tom pulled her legs up around his butt, and she gasped again, never suspecting it could feel better than it already did. He chuckled at her reaction, and inched them up just a bit further, earning an even bigger reaction for his efforts. Hermione went wild, matching each of his thrusts with her own, and she got the "Oh!" she'd been after, then another and another. The room filled with the sounds of their ecstatic voices in the throes of passion.

Had he known it could be this damn good with her, Lord Voldemort would have never gotten him to leave his first Hermione behind.


	22. Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"Where the devil have you been, Tom?" Snape demanded as he and Hermione stepped out of his office hand in hand. Snape glanced at their joined appendages and rolled his eyes. "Great, that's not supposed to happen till later. Miss Granger, will you excuse us, please?"

Hermione nodded, and smiled when Tom squeezed her hand before letting her go.

"What are you playing at, Tom?" Snape demanded. "Do you know how hard it is to make a replicant forget that it's in love?"

"Sorry, it just happened," he said, trying to wipe the smile off his face.

"This is going to take a lot of work," Snape complained. "I have to make the clone, and then I have to erase just the right memories in her so she doesn't forget everything, and—"

"Fortunately for you two, you're not going to have to any of that," said a woman's voice from a nearby doorway.

"Lady Mione, what are you doing here?" he demanded as she sauntered into the room.

"I've been waiting for you for over an hour, Professor," she told him. "I do understand that you might be busy, what with the war raging outside, but I was certain you would want to tie up the final loose end and send the original time-traveler back to 1945."

"What do you know about that?" Snape asked her as he stared off somewhere past her head.

"Come on, Severus, you don't think my husband talks in his sleep? The Dark Lord he may be, but he's still a human being, the same as you or me," she said. "I've figured out how to avoid my redundancy, if you must know. You see, you're about to kill him, which would leave me without a Tom of my own, since I know this one wants the younger variety. Who wouldn't? But, then I got to thinking. I happened upon a youth serum a couple years back that I have been saving up for this very moment. You don't need another replicant to go back in time. I want you to send me instead."

"But he's going to kill this Hermione," Snape reminded her. "Why would you want to go back, knowing that you will die by his hand?"

"I would rather die knowing I served a purpose than to linger here where I no longer belong," she explained. "This Tom and his younger Hermione can look after our children, who are mostly grown anyway. I've already arranged for their futures, each owns a house of their own, and Tommy is already about to be a father, so you'll get to have fun seeing our grandkids. And who knows, maybe the two of you will have some kids of your own—although I can't imagine how you're going to explain their relationship to Tommy's kid later on!"

"You're sure this is what you want to do?" Snape asked, his face a mask of worry. "And you don't want me to wipe your memories of anything?"

"Nope, I'll just take my potion and take my chances," she said. "Getting him to fall for me will be the easy part—it's getting him to kill me I'm more worried about."

"This is so insane, I don't know where to begin," said Tom as he ran a hand through his hair. "Why don't you just stay here and become a grandmother, and live a normal, healthy life? I hate the idea of sending you to die."

"Tom, there will only be one of you left in this timeframe," she said. "I couldn't stand to live knowing you were with someone else, even if that someone is me. Don't you understand that?"

Tom reached over and pulled her to him, kissing her softly on her forehead. "At least I know I made you happy in some way," he whispered.

"You did," she said. "Now, let's get this over with, shall we?"

Lady Mione pulled out a potion from her pocket and drank it down while Snape pulled a time turner from his. Her features began to writhe and contort as he set the time and place for her, then slipped the necklace over her head.

"Thank you," she said, and then she was gone.

"Well, that was unexpected," Snape commented.

"At least we didn't have to figure out how to make my Hermione forget me," Tom grinned. "I don't think it would have been easy."

"Father?" Harry called as he stepped into the hall. "Who was that woman?"

"Never you mind, son," Snape answered as he gave him a hug.

"I've killed the Dark Lord," he announced. "The war is over."

#

"There you are, Tom," said Hermione as he joined her at the celebration feast. "We're about to drink a toast to Harry."

"Yes, so I heard," he said, and surreptitiously dumped a vial into each of their drinks before handing one to her. Then he kissed her soundly, right there in front of everyone, and her cheeks pinkened prettily with embarrassment as Ron and Harry grinned back at her afterwards.

"Let's hear it for Harry Snape!" shouted his mother from the front of the crowd as she held up her glass.

"Hear, hear!" shouted Hermione and Tom as they stood arm in arm, and then they both drank down their glasses of pumpkin juice. Hermione dropped her glass, and it shattered on the floor. Tom sat down rather abruptly as well. The two stared at each other as their potions sunk in and the memories began to flow freely. Without a word, the two of them thought it prudent to leave the gathering behind for a little privacy.

"You stupid bastard!" Hermione hissed. "You just put my memories into the wrong head! I can't believe this!"

"Oh, damn!" he whispered as he put his hands to his face. "And Lady Mione's memories are in mine, too."

"Now what do we do?" Hermione—or at least her body—asked as she stared at the two empty glasses, one of which lay in pieces on the floor. "I wanted to be the Minister of Magic. I wanted to be the actor, and the historian, and the father of the children we will eventually have. Now I'm going to be their mother instead? Me, the most powerful Dark wizard who ever lived?"

"Well, let me put it this way: short of me grabbing up the pieces of shattered glass and licking them for your memory fragments, I think we're stuck being each other from now on," Tom said apologetically.

"So now I'm a seventh year hottie and evil mastermind all rolled into one, and you're my brainy but seductive wife hiding in a man's body?" she asked with an amused grin he knew full well was coming from the man within her.

Tom laughed as he reviewed a few memories that revealed just how kinky Lady Mione actually could be. "You know, you always did say you wanted us to have a threesome," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but I kind of thought I'd have a penis at the time," said Hermione's voice but obviously with Voldemort's thought in it.

"Isn't Hermione still in there?" Tom wanted to know. "You've been talking like yourself this whole time."

"Yes, she's here. She simply passed out from shock," he said. "Don't worry, I'll certainly break her of that habit soon enough. You know how much weakness annoys me."

"Go easy on her, will you?" he asked. "She has one of the strongest minds I have ever known. And I know it quite intimately now."

"Yes, I'll just bet you do," he answered. "It's going to take years to pull out these memories and swap them around to our liking. I suppose we'd better get used to having sex with ourself."

Tom chuckled. "I don't know about you, old boy, but I've been doing that for years…."

FINIS


End file.
